Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MADAM SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

CITY OF WESTMINSTER BILL [Lords] (By Order)

Order for consideration, as amended, read.

To be considered on Thursday 9 March.

QUEEN MARY AND WESTFIELD COLLEGE BILL (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time on Thursday 9 March.

Oral Answers to Questions — TREASURY

Income Tax

Mr. Hendry: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans the Government have to extend the 20 per cent. income tax band.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Kenneth Clarke): The Government are committed to low tax rates, and will continue to move towards a 20 per cent. basic rate of income tax when it is prudent to do so.

Mr. Hendry: I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend for that answer. Will he confirm that 5 million people now pay tax at the lower 20 per cent. rate? Does he agree that an extension of the 20 per cent. rate is a clear example of the way in which Conservative tax cuts help those on lower incomes, especially pensioners, as well as all other groups in society?

Mr. Clarke: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. As he says, the 20 per cent. band has been widened every year since it was introduced, and nearly 5.5 million taxpayers now pay tax of only 20 per cent.

Mr. Gordon Brown: On the taxation of income of executive share options and the abuses in the privatised utilities, on Tuesday the Prime Minister threatened legislation, and on Wednesday the Secretary of State for Employment, the President of the Board of Trade and, indeed, the Chancellor rebuffed it. Will the Chancellor admit that he was wrong in ruling out legislation in the past? Give that 150 directors of privatised utilities have £100 million in shares—

Madam Speaker: Order. I have had occasion earlier this week to call attention to the fact that a supplementary question was not related to the substantive question on the Order Paper, which today concerns the 20 per cent.

income tax band and its extension. Would the hon. Gentleman care to relate his question directly to the substantive question on the Order Paper?

Mr. Brown: On the loss of income tax revenues because of what happens in the case of executive share options, will the Chancellor tell us that in the Budget Finance Bill he will introduce new measures to curb executive share options and tax them as income?

Mr. Clarke: I have just told the House that 5.5 million people now pay tax at only 20 per cent. The hon. Gentleman has so little to say on behalf of the Opposition about reducing the burden of tax on those on lower incomes that he keeps dragging out his complaints about a handful of people whom we are all agreed have taken too much out of the industries for which they work.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment and I spoke yesterday. I did not see what my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade said, but I assume we all said what the Prime Minister said on Tuesday. I certainly did, and so did the Secretary of State for Employment. The Greenbury committee has been set up and has promised to report to us with recommendations on how best practice can be improved and on any measures that need to be taken. We all agree that the Government will certainly take whatever action is necessary when we have the Greenbury report.
The hon. Gentleman is using his protracted concern about the share options of a handful of people to disguise the fact that he has nothing whatever to say about the total burden of taxation on ordinary men and women.

Direct Taxation

Mr. Jenkin: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the relationship between reductions in direct taxation and the performance of the economy; and if he will make a statement.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Jonathan Aitken): It has long been our assessment that high direct taxes damage the performance of the economy. That is why substantial reductions in direct taxation have been made since 1979 and why we hope to make further reductions when it is prudent to do so.

Mr. Jenkin: Is it not evident that countries whose Governments take a higher proportion of the national wealth in taxation than our Government tend to have slower growth rates? Have we not achieved a major structural shift in competitiveness, to the advantage of the United Kingdom, by holding down the share of wealth that is taken by the Government, unlike many of our European competitors whose Government expenditure now exceeds 60 per cent. of gross domestic product?

Mr. Aitken: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for stressing the importance of the connection between tight control of Government expenditure and good economic growth and competitiveness. He was right to make the point that the share of output spent by our Government is lower than that of any of our major European competitors. I should also note that, as we are a world trading nation, we must keep up the pressure to maintain tight control of Government expenditure because the ratio of Government expenditure to gross domestic product in other competitive nations, in areas such as the Asian Pacific region, and even in mature economies such as the United


States of America and Japan, is still lower than it is here. We are, however, winning the prize in relation to our European competitors.

Mr. Malcolm Bruce: Why is only one of the Chancellor's five wise men forecasting that he will achieve his inflation targets by the end of this Parliament? Does the Chief Secretary think that that may be because they anticipate irresponsible and premature tax cuts that prejudice the national economy for short-term political advantage?

Mr. Aitken: I shall not second-guess any wise men, whose forecasting record has not been any more impeccable than anyone else's sometimes, but I reject the notion that some irresponsible activity is going on in the Treasury and that it will lead to higher inflation. My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor has shown his determination by a series of moves to keep inflation tightly under control and we will continue to do that.

Mr. Anthony Coombs: Does my right hon. Friend agree that we welcome progress so far, but it is precisely those developed countries such as Japan, Switzerland and the United States of America that have the lowest proportion of taxation as a proportion of gross net product—it is below 30 per cent.—and the best unemployment figures? In the past 15 years, fresh progress has been made in the United Kingdom to reduce the tax burden on a direct basis. Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to get the total tax burden below 30 per cent. of GNP to match the achievement of those other countries?

Mr. Aitken: My hon. Friend makes a good point. As I said in my first answer, Britain is doing well in relation to some of our European competitors, but if one looks around the world one finds that we have some way to go, both in terms of taxation reductions and of Government expenditure reductions, to maintain our momentum of competitiveness. We are doing well. The trend of Government expenditure and taxes is aiming to come down, but we must keep that pressure up.

Mr. Andrew Smith: Following the publication on Tuesday of the report and study by Oxford and Warwick universities showing that no connection exists between the performance of companies and of the economy and the tax breaks given on executive share options, will the Chief Secretary give a commitment to tax those options as income? Does he not understand that the public are sick and tired of being taken for a ride by the excesses of some people in privatised boardrooms, and that it is not enough for him, the Prime Minister and his right hon. Friends to call this distasteful? The public want action and they want it now.

Mr. Aitken: The hon. Gentleman's continual attempts at bogus indignation on this point are synthetic. If a company is successful and the executives of that company are performing well, there is no reason why they should not receive good rewards. Like everyone else, however, the Government are opposed to and critical of corporate greed, wherever it materialises. We reject the continued attack on share options that, in many companies, are well earned and well deserved, as are the rewards. I do not agree with the hon. Gentleman that all share options

should be regarded in a hostile and negative light just because there are a few abuses. That is not the correct stance.

Insurance Tax

Mr. Ainger: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many representations he has received on the new insurance tax.

The Paymaster General (Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory): I have received a number of representations.

Mr. Ainger: Does the Paymaster General accept that since 1979 burglaries and car thefts have more than doubled and that since 1987 there has been an increase of more than 20 per cent. in the price of insurance premiums? Why then, given that information, have the Government decided at this stage to penalise the victims of crime even further and, in many cases, to impose an additional tax on people who have no source of defence other than their insurance? Why has the Paymaster General carried on with this, bearing in mind the representations that he has received?

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: The incidence of crime is certainly one factor in the level of insurance premiums, which is why it is good news that the latest figures show that, over the past 12 months, recorded crime has dropped by 5.5 per cent. and burglary and theft by rather more.
In answer to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question, I believe that a 2.5 per cent. tax on insurance premiums does not deter people from taking out prudent insurance, bearing in mind the fact that this sector is historically undertaxed to the extent that insurance premiums do not bear value added tax.

Taxation, Scotland

Mr. Jacques Arnold: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what estimate he has made of the effect on the Scottish economy of an increase in taxation equivalent of between 3p and 19p in the pound; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Aitken: Such an increase would be unnecessary and would make the Scottish economy less competitive.

Mr. Arnold: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the vast sums of money currently being paid to Scotland should perhaps be considered the English subscription to the United Kingdom? Is it not perhaps more important to consider that payment as a transfer payment thought necessary because both England and Scotland are part of a single currency—the pound?

Mr. Aitken: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the factual position which is that Scotland today receives 21 per cent. more public expenditure than England—worth approximately £13 per head—but that is because of decisions taken by the elected and accountable Government of the United Kingdom. Whether future proposals for a single currency with fiscal harmonisation would or would not lead to higher levels of public expenditure in various parts of the European Union is one


of the many difficult matters that we should have to assess when we considered whether a single currency might at some stage in the future be in Britain's national interest.

Mr. Salmond: The Chief Secretary is making it very clear why he was laughed at by the business men at the Scottish Council Forum last week. When will he educate his hon. Friends about the huge hidden subsidies that pour into the south-east of England and, more directly, about the fact that, over the past 16 years, the Government have been bankrolled by Scottish resources to the tune of £100,000 million of oil revenues, or £20,000 per head for every man, woman and child in Scotland? When will he start educating Conservative Back Benchers about the true fiscal position?

Mr. Aitken: The sort of rubbish that the hon. Gentleman has just uttered shows why, by contrast, I was warmly applauded when I spoke in Scotland. The fundamental point that I made, with which the business community agreed, is that a tax-raising Scottish Parliament would be an expensive self-indulgence which would scare away inward investors, cost a single man as much as £6.35 a week in tax and cost Scotland jobs, employment and competitiveness. Only the hon. Gentleman would wish to pursue such a path of folly.

Sir Donald Thompson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that my constituents do not care how much goes to various parts of the United Kingdom and that my people in Yorkshire think that a strong Scotland is a strong England and, therefore, a strong Yorkshire and object to this spurious devolution nonsense?

Mr. Aitken: My hon. Friend articulates the view that all our colleagues share—that a strong Union is good for Scotland, good for Britain and good for all parts of the United Kingdom, including Yorkshire.

Brewing Industry

Mr. Sheerman: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent representations he has had from the brewing industry regarding levels of excise duty.

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I received several representations from the brewing industry prior to the last Budget. Since then, various members of the brewing industry have written or made representations to me and other Treasury Ministers.

Mr. Sheerman: The Opposition are never sure which of the Treasury Ministers are good Europeans but, given that many of them indulge in a drink, may I ask the Paymaster General whether he is concerned about the fact that the brewing industry is being harmed by the duty differential and the high level of illegal importation, or smuggling? Is it not about time that he and his colleagues did something to protect an industry that is a job creator and a wealth creator and deserves his attention and help?

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: Brewing is indeed an important industry, and we wanted to keep excise duties stable in the Budget. It was when the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends voted down the second stage of the imposition of value added tax on domestic fuel that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor sought to recover the revenue by increasing excise duties on tobacco, alcohol and road fuels, which was very much a

second-best option. The brewing industry may well want to know why the hon. Gentleman forced that option on the Government, against our original intentions.

Mrs. Lait: When does my hon. Friend expect the European Commission to publish its paper on excise duties on tobacco and alcohol? Does he expect our continental neighbours to engage in constructive discussions on the subject?

Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: I cannot say when the discussions will be properly under way, but my hon. Friend knows, I hope, that we believe that other member states should increase the minimum rates of duty to help to close the gap between our higher duty rates and theirs. That gap is the cause of much of the cross-border shopping, and some of the smuggling, that is currently taking place.

Tax Evasion

Ms Lynne: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he is taking to gather information on the sums of money lost to the Exchequer through tax evasion.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir George Young): There is no reliable way of measuring the extent of tax evasion. What is important is for the Inland Revenue to investigate suspected evasion across all areas of taxation—which it does—and to collect tax that is payable.

Ms Lynne: Is the Minister aware that £4 billion is lost each year in uncollected tax? Meanwhile, the number of Inland Revenue support staff is being cut by a further 25 per cent. Is it not madness to cut staff numbers when the uncollected tax bill is soaring?

Sir George Young: The reduction in the number of Inland Revenue staff is being paid for, or secured, by a move to self-assessment and the introduction of information technology. The important point, however, is that counter-evasion work is not being cut. On the contrary, over the next five years the Revenue will put more resources into such work from routine processing.

Mr. John Townend: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the lower the levels of taxation, the less will be the incentive either to evade or to avoid tax? The loss of revenue will also be much lower.

Sir George Young: My hon. Friend makes a crucial point. When tax rates were approaching 100 per cent., the incentive to avoid or evade tax was relatively high; now that we have reduced tax, with the highest rate at 40 per cent., the incentive to engage in the creative accounting referred to by my hon. Friend has, of course, been sharply reduced.

Mr. Maginnis: Does the Minister agree that there is every incentive for people to avoid paying tax, given the profligate way in which the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland spends taxpayers' money? He has embarked on a door-to-door drop, delivering to every house in Northern Ireland the Government disinformation that is contained in the framework document.

Sir George Young: I am not sure that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury is the best person to respond to


that question, but I am sure that there was value for money in every action taken by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland.

Ms Primarolo: In the context of tax evasion and loss of money to the Exchequer, is the Financial Secretary aware of last week's National Audit Office report, which showed that £800 million of VAT had had to be written off because his Department had not collected it? People will be shocked to hear that, at a time when the Government are imposing VAT on fuel and proposing to cut the number of VAT offices collecting the money. What steps will the Government now take to ensure that money is collected from businesses and individuals alike when it is owed, rather than extending the scope of VAT on fuel?

Sir George Young: Both Customs and Excise and Inland Revenue have a very good record of collecting tax that is due and payable to them, but if there is no money to be collected because, for example, the business is insolvent, clearly the money cannot be collected. The bulk of write-offs to which the hon. Lady referred were because, in fact, the cash was not there to pay the bill.

Mr. Clifton-Brown: Pursuant to my right hon. Friend's answer, if it follows that when the top rate of tax was reduced from 98 per cent. to 40 per cent. the tax take went up, it also follows that the amount of evasion went down. Does it not therefore follow that if the Labour party were to put up tax rates, the amount of evasion would increase?

Sir George Young: My hon. Friend is absolutely right in his last point and, crucially, in his first point, too. Although we have reduced the top rate of tax, higher earners are now contributing a bigger percentage of the total tax bill than they were in 1979.

House Prices

Dr. Lynne Jones: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on house prices.

The Minister of State, Treasury (Mr. Anthony Nelson): The Department of the Environment house price index shows that house prices increased by 2 per cent. in the year to the fourth quarter of 1994.

Dr. Jones: How does the Minister reconcile the need for price stability in the housing market with his Government's policies on assistance to house buyers, especially the million trapped by negative equity?

Mr. Nelson: The hon. Lady should draw some encouragement from the fact that the number of people with negative equity has fallen by nearly a half and, indeed, the value of that negative equity has fallen by nearly two thirds. I immediately acknowledge, however, that there is a real problem and a concern, particularly for those who want to move and suffer from negative equity. In the Government's view, the best prospects for a gradual revival in house prices will be served by continued economic growth and increased prosperity, rather than a short-term inflationary boom.

Single European Currency

Mr. Gordon Prentice: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what discussions he has with EU leaders about the introduction of a single currency and its link with political union.

Mr. Welsh: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent representations he has received advocating a single European currency; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Heppell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what discussions he has held with the Economic and Finance Council about a single European currency.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke: I hold regular discussions with my European colleagues about a wide range of issues, including those relating to a single currency.

Mr. Prentice: What are the constitutional impediments, if any, of Britain joining a single currency? Is the issue really a matter of practice rather than principle, as asserted by the Prime Minister yesterday?

Mr. Clarke: The Prime Minister, other members of the Government and I set out yesterday the way in which the country should exercise the judgment that we have allowed it to make by the negotiations at Maastricht. We discussed this comprehensively yesterday and the Prime Minister came to the sensible conclusion—indeed, the obvious, commonsense conclusion—that we should take advantage of that option by taking a hard-headed judgment of British interest when the time comes, if it ever comes, for us to make up our mind.

Mr. Welsh: Did the Prime Minister agree to or in any way alter the words of the Chancellor's speech on 9 February, in which he said that monetary union would not necessarily be a huge step on the road to federal union in Europe? If the Prime Minister agreed with him then, why will he not back the Chancellor's words now? Is there a massive policy gulf between them or, indeed, between them and the previous Chancellor, who disagrees with them both?

Mr. Clarke: The Prime Minister answered that question yesterday in a way with which I totally agree. The Prime Minister said:
With one important qualification: I believe that it is possible to move forward to monetary union without necessarily moving forward to political union … the qualification depends on the nature and style of monetary union".—[Official Report, 1 March 1995; Vol. 255, c. 1067.]
He went on to deal with that. It is absurd nit-picking textual analysis to try to separate members of the Government from that. That position leads, as I have just said, to the plain and obvious commonsense conclusion that we will make our minds up on the best judgment of British interests in 1999, or thereafter, whenever this proposition comes before us. To most people in the country, that, I think, is the sensible way in which to approach this important issue, compared with the rather lightweight way, with uncertain support behind, which the Opposition parties have demonstrated.

Mr. Heppell: Is the Chancellor aware that yesterday the Prime Minister significantly decided not to endorse the Chancellor's view on a European currency that it


would not be a serious constitutional issue? In view of the Prime Minister's lack of support, does the Chancellor feel that his position is unassailable?

Mr. Clarke: I can only assume that the hon. Gentleman was not here yesterday. If he had been, he would have enjoyed an extremely interesting debate which, in my opinion, was won hands down by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I can also assume that the hon. Gentleman did not listen to my first two answers to questions on this subject. It is quite obvious from his misquotation that he has not read the speech that I gave a few days ago. I suggest that he studies what is coming from those on the Government Benches explaining the difficult choice that the country may face and how we propose to tackle it. He will then be better informed on all aspects of the subject.

Dr. Hampson: Did my right hon. and learned Friend notice a piece in The Observer a few months ago which argued that commitment to a single currency and the associated restrictions on public spending and inability to devalue were inherently in conflict with the Labour party's commitments on economic policies? The author of that piece was the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), who claimed that 67 other Opposition Members supported him. Is it surprising that the title of the piece was "Labour all at sea over Europe"?

Mr. Clarke: I failed to see that article, but I am familiar with the views of the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney (Mr. Shore), who is in his place again today. The right hon. Gentleman was a member of Labour Governments who seemed to their opponents to use devaluation as an instrument of policy from time to time which, as a deliberate instrument of policy, I do not think that we should.
My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, North-West (Dr. Hampson) is quite right. At least 60 Opposition Members do not agree with a word of the comments made by the Leader of the Opposition yesterday. The Leader of the Opposition yesterday put forward an incredible position in comparison to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, who made it quite clear that he was going to concentrate on the national interest if and when the decision had to be made.

Dame Jill Knight: Is it not the case that there is now clear evidence that other members of the European family, notably Germany and Ireland, have stated that they recognise the dangers, not only of rushing prematurely into the EMU, but of saying at this stage in the proceedings that they intend to go into the EMU or indeed stay out of it?

Mr. Clarke: My hon. Friend is right. Although the debate may be lively in this country, it is becoming more intelligent and more informed and it is somewhat in advance of that taking place in some other countries on the continent. I have heard the German State Secretary and the Irish Finance Minister say that they see no prospect of economic and monetary union before 1999. I have seen reports of the Portuguese Finance Minister saying that he would expect the Portuguese to exercise an option, despite the fact that they failed to negotiate such an option for themselves in the Maastricht treaty.
The Prime Minister, the Governor of the Bank of England and I have begun to set out the argument at greater length in this country. All of us, including myself, have set out clear circumstances in which we would be opposed to going into economic and monetary union because there are circumstances in which it might not be to our advantage. We in Britain are in one of the best positions in Europe. We have sensibly reserved for ourselves the opportunity to make a contribution to designing the thing and then to make our own decision in due course about where our national interest lies.

Mr. Forman: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware that all Conservative Members, except possibly one right hon. Member, felt that we were completely convinced by the clarification provided by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on this question yesterday? Is it not a fact that, since the Maastricht treaty, the European Union has become much more of a hybrid organisation with more intergovernmental characteristics? Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that we should not fall for the argument from some of our continental partners that we are going to be the victims of institutional determinism?

Mr. Clarke: I agree with my hon. Friend and I do not think that we are going to be the victims of institutional determinism. I also agree with him that neither of us, nor the Conservative party, wishes that. My hon. Friend is quite right. Ever since Maastricht, with the second and third pillars moving forward on an intergovernmental basis, there have been changes from the old blueprint days inside the European Union. Yesterday, the Prime Minister clarified the position not by giving silly simple answers to very glib questions, but by setting out the serious economic and political considerations on which we have to concentrate and then reserving to the Government of this country the right to make up their mind in due course on a hard-headed judgment of the national interest.

Mr. Gordon Brown: Although the search to find Mr. Leeson is now over, the search is clearly still on to discover the Government's European policy. On the single currency and the referendum, yesterday the Prime Minister said that a referendum may be necessary and desirable. Does the Chancellor now regret saying, as he did, that a referendum was totally a non-issue and that those who thought that constituents desired it were slightly up the creek? Does the Chancellor agree with the Prime Minister that a referendum may be necessary and may be desirable?

Mr. Clarke: Well, there were better jokes yesterday from the Leader of the Opposition and from the hon. Member for Livingston (Mr. Cook). The search is now on for some Labour party policy on the subject which might hold together people as disparate as the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) with the right hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Stepney, and the hon. Member for Workington with the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), pointing out some rather serious divisions behind the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown).
Our position is clear: that when the time comes to make a decision, the Prime Minister left open the question of a referendum. If and when we do reach the stage at which a single currency is on the agenda and ready for national decision, that is obviously again something that we have


left open for the British Parliament at the time to consider when it decides how to address the question of the national interest.

Mr. Haselhurst: Does my right hon. and learned Friend think that the increased usage of the ecu as a common currency would help to clarify some of the practicalities and dispel some of the myths attaching to a possible future single currency?

Mr. Clarke: I do, but I think that it is going to be rather difficult to move there from the Maastricht position. The British Government, with hindsight, were proved right in pursuing those ideas, as indeed we did in the run-up to Maastricht. If it came back as a real possibility, I agree with my hon. Friend that it might well be a very sensible way to proceed, but all these matters now might or might not emerge in the debate over the next four, five or however many years in which we are going to play an active and constructive role.

Teachers' Pay

Mr. Betts: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will agree to fund fully local authorities and schools for the cost of the teachers' pay settlement in 1995–96.

Mr. Aitken: No.

Mr. Betts: Does the Chief Secretary accept that the only help that the Chancellor has so far offered to schools and councils facing education budget cuts is that they can enter into sale and lease-back deals with their own assets? Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that sale and lease-back deals under the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 have to be offset completely against the credit approvals of local authorities and therefore cannot add one penny to their revenue budgets?
If that is true, is not the advice so far offered to schools and local authorities unhelpful and misleading? What will the Chief Secretary do to help schools, governors and parents facing massive increases in class sizes, or will he, like the Chancellor, stand on one side while education standards in our schools decline because he and his colleagues will not fund the pay settlement for which they are totally responsible?

Mr. Aitken: I am certainly prepared to tell the hon. Gentleman what I would do to help schools in Sheffield. I would encourage Sheffield county council to stop being extravagant and profligate with taxpayers' money. I would stop it wasting money, by keeping open 12,000 surplus school places. I would be very critical of a council that, when it was under the hon. Gentleman's leadership, wasted tens of millions of pounds of taxpayers' money on the world student games for Sheffield. Instead of coming up with bright wheezes for spending taxpayers' money, it is about time that Sheffield and a few other councils got their act together and kept taxpayers' money under good tight control.

Mr. Devlin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Cleveland, one of the most left-wing authorities in the north of England, has announced that it will fully fund the teachers' pay increase from its own reserves? If a

well-known left-wing authority such as Cleveland can do that—like Sheffield, it has built up enormous debts—why cannot other authorities do that?

Mr. Aitken: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his praise, which comes from an unexpected quarter, for a council that is doing the right thing. All over Britain there are schools with current cash balances of more than £700 million, and local authorities are awash with cash of about £2 billion. Against that background, it is ludicrous for some councils to claim far too easily that they cannot possibly afford to fund what is admittedly a tight local government settlement to help schools.

Mr. Clapham: Is the Minister really aware of the pressure on local authorities? For example, in Barnsley over the past five years we have had to absorb a 57 per cent. increase in the number of children on free school meals, a 54 per cent. increase in the number of children who receive grants for clothes and a 200 per cent. increase in the number of children needing special education. Clearly, the local authorities need help—

Mr. Fabricant: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. The microphone is not working and we cannot hear.

Madam Speaker: I am sorry, but I can hear the hon. Gentleman quite clearly, although it seems that no one else can. Will the sound effects people please increase the sound for Mr. Clapham?

Mr. Clapham: Given those facts, is the Minister prepared to review his decision?

Madam Speaker: Did the Minister hear the question?

Mr. Aitken: I heard the question, more or less. The answer to it is that the hon. Gentleman has provided only half of the true picture. Of course the local government settlement is tight, but in Barnsley, for example, there are unspent school balances of about £3 million, there has been a standard spending assessment increase of 30.4 per cent. over the past five years, and expenditure per pupil is at the rather satisfactory figure of £1,570. Even allowing for inflation, that is roughly three times the amount spent when the Labour Government were in office. The schoolchildren of Barnsley have not had a bad deal from the Government.

Mr. John Greenway: Cleveland county council, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, South (Mr. Devlin), is not alone in the north-east in having had the foresight to plan for the teachers' pay award. North Yorkshire county council provided in its budget for a 2.5 per cent. increase in pay, and although finding the extra £300,000 will not be easy, it will not mean the kind of cuts in the classrooms that we have heard about from the media. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that local authorities that have done the right thing this year will not be starved of cash next year, and that their patience with the Government's policy will be rewarded with a better settlement in future?

Mr. Aitken: I congratulate my hon. Friend and his North Yorkshire local education authority on having done the right and responsible thing and cut their cloth according to what was necessary to deliver good standards of education. On my hon. Friend's second point, of course we acknowledge that this year's local government settlement has been tight. I hear what he says about


ensuring that neither in North Yorkshire nor anywhere else are schoolchildren subjected to unreasonable pressures—but we do not believe that we have put unreasonable pressure on this year. The local government settlement is tight but fair.

Incomes

Mr. Barnes: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what inquiries his Department is conducting into the distribution of income and wealth in the United Kingdom.

Sir George Young: We keep a range of information under review, including that in the Department of Social Security's households below average income analysis and the Central Statistical Office's analysis of income distribution and the effects of taxes and benefits.

Mr. Barnes: Yesterday, the Prime Minister said that we should know the facts before we make decisions. Should we not know the full facts about income and wealth distribution, and about the range of poverty? Between 1974 and 1979, the Labour Government had a standing Royal Commission on income and wealth distribution, but the first act of the new Conservative Government was to disband it. Should we not have an investigation covering more subjects than those that the Minister mentioned?

Sir George Young: Of course it is important to have the facts, but if we examine the expenditure of the poorest 10 per cent. in this country—the poorest three quarters of a million people—we find that roughly half of them spend more than the average. I ask the hon. Gentleman to look at the facts with care before he comes to any conclusion.

Mr. Yeo: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the country would be better served if his Department spent its time considering the creation of income and wealth rather than its distribution?

Sir George Young: My hon. Friend is right. He will know that we have adopted many supply-side measures precisely to increase the capacity of this country to promote wealth. There are also measures in the current Finance Bill that take those policies further.

Ms Armstrong: Is the Minister not a little complacent, given that the deputy chairman of the Conservatives has reminded the party that the British people are fed up with the rich getting richer on the backs of the poor? Is it not time that the Government took action on the matter? They have an opportunity in the Finance Bill to agree to taxing excess share options. Why do they not take it?

Sir George Young: The Opposition will have absolutely no credibility on the subject of poverty until they come up with clear and costed proposals to deal with the problem and have identified exactly how they will pay for them.

Taxation

Mr. Skinner: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will make a statement on the impact of taxation on different groups since 1979.

Sir George Young: Average net income rose by 36 per cent., in real terms, between 1979 and 1991–92. There were increases for all economic groups and all family types.

Mr. Skinner: Why does the Minister not tell us the whole story? Is not the truth that, since 1979, the richest 10 per cent. in Britain have had £50 billion cumulatively in tax cuts? Instead of attacking the nurses and teachers with paltry wage increases, and attacking pensioners, why do not the Government redistribute that money to ensure that pensioners, the national health service, the social services and local government have the right finances to offset the cuts?

Sir George Young: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to ask his right hon. and hon. Friends on the Front Bench why the Labour party tabled an amendment to the Finance Bill to give—for the first time—tax relief to exactly the sort of people about whom he is complaining, on the bills which they pay for tax planning.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Q 1. Mr. Maclennan: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 2 March.

The Prime Minister (Mr. John Major): This morning, I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in the House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

Mr. Maclennan: As the Prime Minister failed last night to persuade his campaign manager—the Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of Maastricht—on Europe, how can he hope to persuade anyone else? Will the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Thames (Mr. Lamont) be joining those without a Whip, or will they join him within the ranks of the anti-Europeans in the Conservative party?

The Prime Minister: What has piqued the hon. Gentleman is that I managed to persuade a sufficient number of people into my Lobby to win the vote.

Mr. Devlin: Is my right hon. Friend aware of the Lloyds bank survey of the north of England which shows that one third of all businesses in the region expect to take on additional staff in the next three months? Is he also aware that there has been a 13 per cent. drop in unemployment in the neighbouring constituency of Sedgefield? Why do we never hear any of that from the Member who represents that constituency?

The Prime Minister: I am pleased to hear about the drop in unemployment in Sedgefield, although I thought that it had fallen by 16 per cent. I am delighted to see unemployment dropping throughout the United Kingdom, and we intend to pursue policies which ensure that it will continue to drop.

Mr. Blair: In the light of yet another report today on an excessive pay package in a privatised monopoly and of his own threat on Tuesday to legislate, will the right hon. Gentleman back an amendment to the Gas Bill a week on Monday that would give the regulator the power


to cut prices where pay deals are excessive? Would that not send the clearest possible signal to the utilities that the game is up?

The Prime Minister: I set out the position clearly to the right hon. Gentleman on Tuesday, and he should know that the role of the regulator is to protect the interests of the consumer. I do not propose to extend that role. The regulators are introducing competition and bearing down on prices. As to the underlying premise of the right hon. Gentleman's question, I set out that we shall wait and see the report from Sir Richard Greenbury and his colleagues. We shall then take action upon that, including legislative back-up if that is required.

Mr. Blair: Does the Prime Minister not know that the Greenbury committee has said that it will not propose any legislation and its report will not be out for months? Furthermore, its main recommendations will not affect the abuses in the privatised monopolies. The anger is now, the abuses are now: why will he not act now to put an end to the abuses?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman's assertions are, frankly, wrong. I made clear the other day the subjects that I believe need addressing—the need for complete and open disclosure over remuneration and the need to ensure that bonuses and share options are firmly based on company performance. Those subjects need consideration. When we have recommendations that cover those, we shall consider them, and I have made it clear that, if necessary, we shall provide legislative back-up. Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, I believe that it is both necessary and desirable to wait until we have that report and that information so that we can consider what action is necessary.

Mr. Peter Bottomley: May I refer my right hon. Friend to the debate on Europe and the single currency yesterday? In columns 1053 and 1056 of Hansard, the leader of a political party dealt with interventions by one of my right hon. Friends, first, by saying that he would give way, but not doing so, and, secondly, by accusing him of inconsistency? Is there not a lesson in that on how to get people to vote on our side by treating them with less courtesy than the Labour party? [Interruption.]

The Prime Minister: We had an excitable day yesterday and perhaps we can have a little more calm today, Madam Speaker. The debate yesterday was very revealing in a number of respects. It was revealing because of what the leader of the Liberal party had to say, and it was also very revealing because a number of Labour Members flatly contradicted assertions in the speech by the leader of the Labour party. He was open enough to admit that his party was split and his party was generous enough to show precisely that in the speeches that Labour Members subsequently made.

Secretary of State for Wales

Mr. Wigley: To ask the Prime Minister if he will remove the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) from his post of Secretary of State for Wales.

The Prime Minister: No.

Mr. Wigley: Surprise, surprise. Is the Prime Minister aware that, when the post of Secretary of State for Wales was first created, the idea was to have one member of the

Cabinet from Wales, to speak up from personal experience of the needs and the aspirations of the people of Wales? The present incumbent is clearly incapable of doing that. Given the opinion poll this week, which has shown yet again that there is a 2:1 majority in favour of the powers of the Welsh Office being answerable to a Parliament in Wales rather than to a Governor General, will the Prime Minister stop having such an intransigent attitude to the question and allow the people of Wales to have at least some semblance of national democracy?

The Prime Minister: I do not regard my position as the hon. Gentleman described it and would describe it quite differently. He is aware of my views of the possible difficulties with a Welsh Assembly. I do not believe that it is in the interests of Wales. To be frank, generally if the answer to the question is more politicians, then it is the wrong question. As to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, during his period in office, Wales has benefited from a steady stream of inward investment from the United States and the Pacific rim, and there has been a considerable improvement in the quality of life and the standard of living throughout Wales. Those are the policies that are necessary for the future. An extra tier of government, which would suck a great deal of authority from local councils in Wales, is not the way forward.

Ministerial Visits

Mr. Robathan: To ask the Prime Minister when he next plans to visit Blaby.

The Prime Minister: I have no immediate plans to do so.

Mr. Robathan: Is my right hon. Friend aware of a recent visit to Enderby in my constituency by the hon. Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), at which he discussed devolution with the Blaby constituency Labour party—all 25 of them? When my right hon. Friend visits Blaby, which I hope that he will do very soon, will he also discuss devolution, for he will discover that the overwhelming majority of my constituents, many of whom were born in Scotland or Wales, value the integrity of the United Kingdom, oppose devolution and have no interest in a ridiculous regional assembly based in Birmingham or elsewhere?

The Prime Minister: Where there is a proper system of local government, I believe that devolution to an extra tier of government is an unwise way to proceed. There is one form of devolution that I strongly favour, which is devolution straight down to individuals: to let families make their own choice; and to let people have more control over schools, hospitals and local decisions. That is the form of devolution that we favour, not devolution to an extra tier of bureaucrats and politicians.

Engagements

Mr. Etherington: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 2 March.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Etherington: Will the Prime Minister attend the House tomorrow to vote in favour of the admirable Wild Mammals (Protection) Bill, presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall)? More


importantly, will he give an undertaking to the House that he will endeavour to ensure that parliamentary time is made available so that the will of the vast majority of people, who want the barbarism of blood sports abolished, can be brought to fruition?

The Prime Minister: That has traditionally been the responsibility of individual Members and their consciences. I shall not be here to support the hon. Gentleman.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: Is my right hon. Friend aware that Lancashire county council put £7 million of council tax money into a special contingency reserve to pay a 2.2 per cent. rise in teachers' salaries? Unfortunately, it has not handed over that money to the schools to pay those salaries. Does he sympathise with those in the schools, who feel very angry about that and therefore want to go grant-maintained?

The Prime Minister: A large number of schools have gone grant-maintained because they believe that they can better look after their own interests than if they are retained in the control of the local education authority. I hope and believe that many more will do so in the future, not least for the reasons that my hon. Friend set out. I do not think that anyone can be unaware of the campaign that is being waged at the moment by some education authorities. I noticed the press release produced by the Opposition this morning. If they had looked at the facts of what is to happen to the standard spending assessments of the education authorities that they quote, they might have produced a more straightforward and honest press release.

Mr. Timms: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 2 March.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Timms: The Prime Minister will recall that, in 1991, the then Secretary of State for Transport announced that the channel tunnel rail link would be routed through east London to promote urban regeneration specifically within east London. Will the Prime Minister confirm that the Government remain committed to that objective for the rail link?

The Prime Minister: I can certainly confirm the importance of the rail link and I shall ask my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport to let the hon. Gentleman have as much information as is currently available.

Mr. Evennett: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 2 March.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Evennett: Now that the distraction of yesterday's debate is behind us, does my right hon. Friend agree that he should turn his attention to the economic development that has been so successful in recent years, with falling unemployment, low inflation and record exports? Does he agree that the Government's policies are dealing with the real issues that affect the lives of our citizens and that the Opposition have no policies whatever on the economy?

The Prime Minister: I am happy to commend the economic recovery, which is very strong and widespread, and shows signs of being the best economic recovery that we have seen in this country for very many years. I intend to continue to give my full attention to that economic recovery. I wish to ensure that we continue to have growth and falling unemployment, and that we continue to see the levels of investment and growth, particularly in the manufacturing industry, that we have seen of late. Only a continuation of those policies will, over a long period, improve the living standards of the British nation, which is what I wish.

Mr. Fatchett: To ask the Prime Minister if he will list his official engagements for Thursday 2 March.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Fatchett: May I refer back to the issue of top people's pay increases, which was discussed earlier? The Prime Minister has argued that he will leave all of that to the Greenbury committee and its report. Is it right that a Government should delegate that responsibility to an employers' organisation that has a vested interest in top people's pay? Is it not about time that the Prime Minister, who claims that he feels strongly about that issue, gave a lead to the country and introduced his own proposals—or shall we simply be left with government that is all delegation and no leadership?

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends are thirsting to go down the route of pay policies that the Labour party has gone down for generations. The concern that people feel about that issue is the concern that I spelt out with great clarity to the right hon. Member for Sedgefield (Mr. Blair) on Tuesday. We are examining that, we are waiting for recommendations on that, and, when necessary, when the facts are available, we shall decide what action needs to be taken, if necessary, including legislation. However, I have no intention of operating in the envious spirit that activates the hon. Gentleman.

Local Government Reorganisation (England)

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. John Gummer): With permission, I should like to make a statement about the progress of the review of local government structure in England.
My aim is a local government structure that can deliver effective services to its citizens and help build vigorous and self-sustaining communities. I believe that in many places that will involve the creation of unitary local authorities. Equally, I have long recognised that local government needs to reflect local identities, history and tradition. There is room in our system for diversity; different solutions in different areas, to meet different local circumstances. Local government does not need to be neat—it needs to be effective.
I also want to achieve stability so that local government can plan ahead with confidence; developing the concept of the enabling council, which has done so much to create a new culture in local government.
Against that background, I am pleased to be able to announce decisions on 20 of the counties where decisions are outstanding. First, I shall announce decisions on three counties where the commission has recommended change: Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Durham.
For Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, the commission has recommended that the county councils should be abolished, and replaced by a structure of unitary authorities—three in Bedfordshire, four in Buckinghamshire.
I am sure that it is right that Luton in Bedfordshire and Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire should become unitary authorities. I am, however, not convinced by the argument for unitary local government in the rest of those counties. I have decided, therefore, to retain the existing structure of county and district councils in Bedfordshire outside Luton, and in Buckinghamshire outside Milton Keynes.
In Durham, the commission has recommended that Darlington should become an unitary authority, with the rest of the county remaining two-tier. I propose to accept that recommendation.
I have given a full explanation of the background and reasons for those decisions today, in an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington). There are copies in the Library and the Vote Office.
I now turn to the other 17 counties, for which the commission has recommended no change in the present structure. Those are Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Kent, Lancashire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Oxfordshire, Shropshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Warwickshire and West Sussex.
I have decided that, with two provisos, I should accept those recommendations. First, the commission has recommended the status quo for a small number of district councils which are among the largest non-metropolitan towns and cities in England. Many of those councils used to be county boroughs and so have a tradition of unitary local government. They are also often areas where there is a significant need for economic and social regeneration.
The business community, deliverers of personal social services and the voluntary sector often believe that that need can best be met by bringing all of the responsibilities of local government under one roof. There are some other councils where the commission has appeared to accept that logic. I believe that we must at least test the case for consistency in this matter.
Therefore, I intend to ask the commission to carry out fresh reviews of a short list of selected districts—I emphasise that they are districts, and not counties. The rest of the county in each case will not be subject to any further review. I also emphasise that they are fresh reviews for which we shall issue new guidance to the commission. Before we issue that new guidance, we will consult local government and other interested parties about it. I expect the new reviews to get under way in the summer.
I believe that those new reviews must be carried out by a reconstituted commission which can look at the cases afresh. I am most grateful to Sir John Banham for having offered his resignation as chairman of the commission. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sir John for the significant contribution that he has made as chairman, particularly in the establishment of the commission, in responding to the acceleration of the review process and in delivering the structure recommendations for all areas by January this year.
I shall be consulting the Opposition parties about a successor, and I hope to announce a name shortly. I will be considering with the new chairman what other changes should be made to the commission, most of whose members' terms of office expire in June.
The areas I have in mind to be covered by the new reviews are: Blackburn, Blackpool, the Medway towns—that is, Rochester upon Medway and Gillingham—Northampton, Peterborough and Warrington. I also have it in mind to include Thurrock and Basildon in Essex, without prejudice to whatever I may decide on the commission's recommendations for the rest of the county.
A strong prima facie case has been made for a number of other districts to be considered for unitary status. Five districts almost fully covered by the Thames gateway area do not have unitary status at present. I have already said that I propose to refer three of those—Thurrock and the Medway towns—to the commission. Therefore, there is clearly a case for referring the other two—Gravesham and Dartford—as well.
Exeter and Gloucester are two long-standing county boroughs, in both of which there has been strong pressure for unitary status. The commission has recommended unitary status for the ancient counties of Hereford and Rutland. If those recommendations are accepted, it would seem right to ask the commission to consider the case of Huntingdonshire.
The commission has recommended unitary status for the city of Nottingham. There are significant built-up areas outside that city's boundaries, and that leads to the conclusion that the commission ought to look at the advisability of giving unitary status to Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe, given that there is clearly no local demand for a Greater Nottingham council. Finally, if Warrington is referred, the similarly densely populated district of Halton, which has been part of Cheshire only since 1974, may be a suitable candidate for reconsideration.


[Interruption.] Many of the places concerned are interested in their future, even if Opposition Members are not.
I propose to hold further discussions with those towns and cities and their counties, and if those discussions confirm my present understandings, I shall also refer them to the commission for consideration.
It is, of course, open to me to consider further requests for unitary status, but given the need for stability, I should make it clear that it is very unlikely that I shall want to add significantly to the number of referrals to the commission.
I said that accepting the status quo recommendations was subject to two provisos. The second is this: in their response to the commission and their representations to me, many county and district councils admitted that the two-tier system can and must be improved.
Many have made explicit promises about improved co-operation and—where it is appropriate—delegation of functions. Many, indeed, have written such promises in the literature they have sent out in their areas. We are compiling a list of those for each county council. I shall be reminding each of them of the promises that they have made, and I shall be asking them to report to me on the implementation of what are, after all, their own commitments.
I am still considering the recommendations which the commission has made for change in the remaining 12 county areas. I am aware that everyone involved is anxious for the position to be clarified quickly, and I shall be making further announcements shortly.
With the decisions I have announced today, we have covered 27 of the 39 counties. In those counties, with the exception of the small number of districts I have mentioned, people now know how their governance will be carried out. Where the two-tier system is to remain, the authorities will be able to move on to the issues that the review has brought to the forefront: closer co-operation between the tiers and greater delegation of responsibility wherever that is possible. Whether the structures are two-tier or unitary, the end result should be improved services and more effective local government.

Mr. Frank Dobson: On behalf of the Labour party, I welcome much of the statement, and thank the Secretary of State for the discussions which preceded it. The overall effect of what he has announced should deliver much of what we have been calling for.
The proposals made by the Local Government Commission were inconsistent, and displayed neither rhyme nor reason. Rutland, with 33,000 people, was to get independence, while Northampton and Blackburn, both with more than 180,000 people, were not. We were seeking consistency. We were also calling for the House to be given an overall view of the likely proposals for the whole country.
Today's announcement recognises that the present shambles could not be continued. It creates a reasonable prospect of some consistency across the country, and gives a reasonable indication of the likely outcome of the review in every part of England. As that is what we were asking for, I very much welcome the Government's positive response to the points that we have been making, in public and in private.
If we take together the decision so far announced by the Secretary of State, the further recommendations for change made by the commission and the list of authorities which the Local Government Commission is to be asked to re-examine, we see that most of the former large county boroughs are likely to regain their former status, and some additional major urban councils are likely to join them.
Taken together with the list put forward by the Secretary of State, unitary status seems likely to be achieved by Blackburn, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Brighton, Basildon and Thurrock, Darlington and Derby, Exeter, Gravesham and Dartford, Gloucester, Halton, Leicester, Luton, the Medway towns, Nottingham, Northampton, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Reading, Slough, Southampton, Stoke-on-Trent, Thamesdown and Warrington.
However, a limited number of other councils clearly qualify for unitary status under the Secretary of State's new criteria. Therefore, I suggest to the Secretary of State that he at least consider the case for Cambridge, Ipswich, Norwich, Oxford and The Wrekin, which seem to meet his overall criteria. I hope that, in deference to other hon. Members, he will agree to consider other borderline candidates for the list of councils to be referred back to the commission.
The Secretary of State has recognised that, for this proposal to work, changes had to be made at the top of the Local Government Commission. When Sir John Banham was appointed to chair the commission, the right hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr. Portillo) said that he was very happy to appoint Sir John, and described him as "a distinguished public servant" with "a tremendous knowledge" of local authorities. The right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine), the previous Secretary of State for the Environment, said that he was "delighted to announce" that Sir John Banham had agreed to take up the job. I bet he was not half as delighted as the present Secretary of State is to announce Sir John's departure. His conduct of the affairs of the commission has been quite deplorable. It should have been beyond reproach, but at times it has been beyond belief. Sir John's departure was required if today's proposals were to command any support or credibility across the country.
I welcome the opportunity that the Secretary of State has offered us to contribute in due course to setting out the new guidance to the commission. To advise it to use a bit of common sense would make a good start. 'The Secretary of State will understand that we would expect any new county boroughs to have reasonable and acceptable boundaries, and also we would expect the commission to make sure that the number of elected councillors truly matches the ward electorates in all the new authorities.
I hope that the Secretary of State will accept that the new situation creates a further period of uncertainty for council staff who are affected. Therefore, I hope that he will agree to meet the appropriate national officers of the main local government trade unions in an attempt to work out severance and compensation terms that are acceptable to all concerned.
The statement, welcome though it is, acknowledges that the local government review has sunk into a morass of contradiction, inconsistency, expense and litigation, which could have been avoided if the Government had laid down clearer guidelines in the first place and appointed someone better to do the job. The present Secretary of


State has to accept some responsibility for the mess, but the bulk of the blame must lie with his predecessors and their principal appointee.

Mr. Gummer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his general and generous support for what we have proposed. We should look forwards rather than backwards. No doubt all of us could think of different ways of doing many things. Let us accept that the commission has certainly produced its proposals faster than we had expected. It has given us a real opportunity to take these steps, and we should proceed from there.
I shall certainly look carefully at the other districts that the hon. Gentleman mentioned. Of course, I looked at those in trying to draw the line, but that is difficult, as the hon. Gentleman kindly recognised. There are particular examples in terms of size, and we must also bear in mind the effect on the remaining parts of counties if we take the steps that the hon. Gentleman proposes. I shall have to look carefully at the districts and I promise to look at them afresh.
The next step relates to boundaries. I do not envisage any wholesale change in boundaries as a result of what is proposed. It is important for there to be some continuity and security, especially for staff. I should have thought that matters of council wards and the like are traditionally and properly the responsibility of the commission.
Naturally, we are concerned to ensure parity of representation, and it would be proper to draw to the new commission's attention the hon. Gentleman's points. I am certainly happy to meet the representatives of staff organisations, and I recognise that this is a difficult time for all of them.

Sir Trevor Skeet: Is it not anomalous to grant Luton unitary status and at the same time to deny that status to the county town of Bedford? Is my right hon. Friend aware that, in the county outside Luton, the number of people has been reduced to 360,000, with four local authorities? Is that not over-government locally?

Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend is right to put forward a case that I know he has espoused for a long time, but perhaps my answer lies within his question. A perfectly reasonable county is left if one takes the one large town out, but if one then takes another area out, one does not have a sensible remaining county.
Although a fine and ancient town, Bedford is a district with considerable rural areas that have much in common with their neighbours. It would find the two-tier system more to its liking. I have tried to make a proper judgment. It is consistent with general policy for Luton to have its own unitary authority and for Bedford to be a proud county town in what is a fine county.

Mr. David Rendel: The Secretary of State has told us that he intends to refer only districts to the new commission, which he will get to do his bidding as the last one did not. Does he not accept that removing the major town or city from each of the 17 counties that had expected to remain within the status quo will simply prolong for the

next year or two the appalling disruption to local authorities that this shambles of a Local Government Commission has caused for the past two years?

Mr. Gummer: The House is beginning to find it extremely difficult to know what the hon. Gentleman really wants. Of all parties in the House, the Liberal party has shown itself interested only in electoral advantage in any discussion on this matter. I am finding it increasingly difficult to find any rhyme or reason in what the Liberal party wants. When we talk about inconsistency, incongruity and the lack of reasonable principles behind anything, the Liberal party sets an example unfollowed by others.

Mr. Nicholas Winterton: With reference to the county of Cheshire, I naturally warmly welcome my right hon. Friend's decision to request the new commission to consider Warrington, which deserves unitary status—that has my full support. Will he accept, however, that the borough of Macclesfield, in which immense support exists for unitary status not only among individuals, but among charities, voluntary organisations and business, and which produced the best result in the whole of Cheshire in the public consultation on unitary status, should also receive further consideration from the new commission?

Mr. Gummer: Of course I shall look again at Macclesfield, but it is a town of 49,000 people. The district of Macclesfield is a mixture of town and country. It is not dissimilar to many other districts. It is a fine town, and its name is often well presented in the House. It does not, however, stand in quite the same role as, say, Warrington or Northampton, in terms either of size or of historic governance. I shall reconsider the matter, but I think that that town should fall outside the group of councils that I have decided to refer to the new commission.

Mr. Joseph Ashton: Is the Minister aware that, in his further proposals for Nottinghamshire, he has announced that district councils in suburban areas such as Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe will be considered for unitary status, but that areas such as Bassetlaw, Mansfield, Newark and Ashfield will not? The only thing wrong is that the areas that he has proposed for unitary status are Conservative, and that the areas that he has said will not be considered further are Labour. I do not want to accuse him of being politically biased—no hon. Member would want to do that—but could he not add a further request that the fresh review should consider all the district councils of Nottinghamshire? All eight of them want to be unitary authorities. That is the best way to sort the matter out; it is better than just basing proposals around the city.

Mr. Gummer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. A very large proportion of the councils on the list that I read out are Labour councils, but one cannot make the division between Labour and Conservative councils in that way. The councils that I have suggested are part, or an extension, of the conurbation of Nottingham itself, which is at one end—the southern end—of the county. The particular districts that he mentioned would have to be considered to some extent because of the residuary council.
I know that the hon. Gentleman lives in a county council which is not greatly loved by anyone. There is no doubt that Nottinghamshire county council has been unsuccessful, and has done a number of things which have upset everyone. I shall, of course, examine the matter


again, but I think that, if the hon. Gentleman reads my statement, he will find that the councils to which he referred are quite different in terms of make-up. Were I to include them, I should open the way for a wide range of differences and not achieve the coherence that I seek. However, I shall re-examine the issues, because we should try to reach a consensus if possible.

Dame Peggy Fenner: I thank my right hon. Friend. Is he aware that the people who live in the rural areas of my constituency were not overwhelmed by the idea of unitary authority status? However, I am in fairness bound to say that the Medway towns, which I think comprise the largest conurbation in Kent and which deserve the review that he is going to grant, think that they can form a good unitary authority. I support them in that.

Mr. Gummer: I thank my hon. Friend. This is a review, not a decision, and it is for the commission to look at this again. The Thames gateway councils will be involved in seeking money for exciting new projects, arguing among themselves about where those projects should be located and searching for money from the European Union and elsewhere. That means that there is a case to be made for those who are going to affected to have the opportunity of at least equal representation. To exclude them would be wrong.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Madam Speaker: Order. I understand that the statement lends itself to a great deal of local flavour but many hon. Members wish to ask a question and I can call them only if they and the Minister are brisk. There is another statement and further business to come.

Mr. Peter L. Pike: Does the Secretary of State recognise that many people in Lancashire will be less inclined to remain in a Lancashire county council that no longer contains Blackburn and Blackpool? Does he accept that Burnley was an extremely successful county borough, and exactly the same size as Darlington, to which he proposes to give unitary status?

Mr. Gummer: It is curious how enthusiasm for Lancashire county council is busy waning as I offer an alternative. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will find that the balance that has been struck reflects the fact that, in their discussions with the commission, Blackpool and Blackburn showed considerable support for unitary status, which outweighed other parts of the county of Lancashire. It therefore seems right to try to reflect that fact, and I think that the general outcome was probably right.

Mr. Jim Lester: I thank my right hon. Friend for his comments about Nottingham. Once the decision has been made to give unitary status to the city of Nottingham, is it not important to balance that power with the review for Broxtowe, Gedling and Rushcliffe? I wish my right hon. Friend well in his attempts to get a consensus on the future of Nottingham.

Mr. Gummer: I thank my hon. Friend.

Mr. Alan Milburn: May I thank the Secretary of State and his ministerial team for their support for a single-tier Darlington council? He will be aware of the overwhelming popular support in the town for a return to the principles of self-government that were

undermined 21 years ago in the previous local government review. When does he intend to bring an order to the House to bring into being the new Darlington council, so that we can make progress as soon as possible?

Mr. Gummer: I shall produce such an order as soon as possible, although it cannot come into being immediately.

Mr. Bob Dunn: I thank my right hon. Friend for taking the trouble to visit Dartford a few days ago. When he makes his recommendation to the new chairman of the commission, will he recommend that, if north-west Kent is given unitary status, that status should be given within the existing boundaries of what is now the borough of Dartford? We have no wish to be part of a Thames gateway authority stretching from Crayford to beyond Gillingham.

Mr. Gummer: I much enjoyed my visit to Dartford. I have no intention of suggesting the establishment of such a large authority, stretching from Crayford to Hempstead and Bredhurst; I would not dream of it.
I shall suggest to the commission, in the first place, that it review the possibility of a new authority relating to Rochester upon Medway and Gillingham. I shall also suggest, if further discussions take place with the councils concerned, and the county council, that they review the possibility of a new authority covering Gravesham and Dartford—or, if they think it right, a separate authority for Gravesham. That, however, will be for them to propose. I am not making the proposition; I am offering them the opportunity to consider the matter. I doubt, however, that they would want an authority the size of the one that my hon. Friend fears, which would be out of line with anything else that we are proposing.

Mr. Mike Hall: I thank the Secretary of State for his announcement about the county of Cheshire, and welcome the reference to Warrington. May I stress that I feel that Halton borough council should also have unitary status? It fulfils all the criteria outlined by the Secretary of State in relation to popular support, a good identity and social and economic regeneration to support business and the voluntary sector.
May I echo the points made by the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Winterton)? Macclesfield also fulfils all the criteria. I urge the Secretary of State to look again at Chester as well: it too has a complete identity. You will gather, Madam Speaker, that I believe that a unitary solution for the whole of Cheshire would be appropriate.

Mr. Gummer: I understand that there are those who would prefer the whole cake to half of it. I am trying to ensure that the widely differing views of local government are taken into account, and that we provide reasonable answers that will satisfy most people.
I accept the hon. Gentleman's views about Halton; that is why I put Halton in the second list. I shall discuss the matter more widely, and if it turns out that the hon. Gentleman's proposal seems to be more generally accepted, I shall act accordingly.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, I visited the area recently—in fact, I have been there several times—and I am much impressed by the partnership between local authorities and the private sector, and by the use to which elements of the single regeneration budget have been put.


I was pleased to note the changes that have taken place, and I hope that any new form of local government will enhance and increase opportunities.

Mr. Alan Duncan: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his statement, and for tidying up what was a rather mucky exercise.
The county council campaign in Leicestershire has caused some anxiety and concern about whether the county of Rutland can afford county status. Will my right hon. Friend therefore allow some extra time, so that—basing its assessment on the proper costs rather than on county council propaganda—that small county can establish whether it can afford such status, and the division that has been caused can be replaced by unity?

Mr. Gummer: I thank my hon. Friend. I am sorry about some of the extreme propaganda that has been put out by some councils; I do not think that it has helped the discussion. In my statement, I tried very hard to provide an opportunity for people to secure a more sensible and permanent answer.
I shall certainly consider the possibility of extra time. I have always felt that we ought to be able to obtain the advantages of unitary authorities with more sharing. When it seems best for services to spread across two unitary authorities, I do not see why we cannot find ways in which to allow that. We shall consider ways in which we can help.
I do not want people who have long sought independence and control over their affairs, for all sorts of historic reasons, to feel that they can choose that independence and control only at huge expense—particularly if the expense has been calculated by those who do not want them to have it.

Mrs. Audrey Wise: Will the Secretary of State explain why he has taken so little notice of the fact that the majority of citizens in Lancashire, according to the consultations, prefer the status quo; and why he has not taken account of the fact that his present solution will increase the costs of local government for all people in Lancashire? We will be paying for Blackpool achieving unitary status.

Mr. Gummer: I am proposing Blackburn as well as Blackpool, if the hon. Lady wishes to be—

Mrs. Wise: I will add Blackburn as well.

Mr. Gummer: I am glad that the hon. Lady is even-handed about this. The majority of people in Lancashire will have the status quo. I am suggesting only that the commission looks again at these two authorities, where there is evidence of very considerable support and where, in both cases, there is a large population, closely knit, which would have unitary status in other parts of the country. I merely think that it is good idea that that should be looked at carefully. I understand that I have the support of very many members of the Labour party, who live in both those areas, for this reference.

Mr. James Couchman: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Medway (Dame P. Fenner), I welcome the decision to call for the new or revised commission to review the Medway towns. My right hon. Friend will know from his personal knowledge that the

redevelopment of the Medway towns is absolutely critical to their future prosperity and that for planning, transportation and urban redevelopment, the Medway towns are seen as a whole.
The call will be welcomed by all the political parties, with the exception of the Gillingham Liberals, who got up to some extraordinary stunts during the consultation. Will my right hon. Friend tell me a little about the time scale that he foresees for the review, and when he thinks that there will be elections to a new county borough of the Medway towns?

Mr. Gummer: I thank my hon. Friend. I hope that we will have the guidance ready in June, when the old commission will cease and the new commission will be appointed. I hope that it will then get on with the job as quickly as possible, but it is up to its members, of course, to decide how.
I very much agree with my hon. Friend: the great and ancient towns of Chatham and Rochester joined to make a single authority—with rural areas about them, but centrally those two authorities—because they knew that it was necessary for the future of their community. In many of the regeneration areas of the Medway towns, it is difficult to draw the line between Gillingham and Rochester upon Medway.
Indeed, only those who have long lived there—it is probably why the Liberals do not understand this—know where the boundary is. Those who care about Rochester upon Medway and Gillingham are very concerned about the regeneration possibilities and the great hope that comes to that area of the country. I think that they will want at least the advantages—as well as the disadvantages, for there may be some—of unitary status to be considered.

Mr. Bruce Grocott: I join my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) in welcoming a number of the points which were made by the Secretary of State. May I have clarification on the question asked by my hon. Friend about The Wrekin, which the Secretary of State knows is one of the largest district councils which has not so far been give unitary status?
Will the Secretary of State confirm that his answer suggested that The Wrekin will be reconsidered, and will he bear in mind the fact that, with a population of 145,000, it is larger than many authorities which have already been granted unitary status? Will he give some indication of when, after the review process starts in June, he expects it to be completed?

Mr. Gummer: I have recently been to The Wrekin. I understand the hon. Gentleman's comments, and thank him for his support. It is, I think that he will agree, a rather different area from most in the country. That is in the nature of that new town, with its ancient heart and the connections which have been very successfully built. I shall certainly, as I have said, look at it again and consider whether it ought, like the others, to be referred to the commission.
I cannot say when the commission will finish its work, but I hope to press it to finish its work as rapidly as is consistent with sensible and consistent decisions.

Mr. Nick Hawkins: I thank my right hon. Friend on behalf of the people of Blackpool


who voted in such substantial numbers for the unitary status option. May I also thank my hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration for taking such care in listening to the representations made to him by members of all political parties when he visited Blackpool shortly before Christmas?
In particular, while recognising that Blackpool, as an historic county borough, has now to make its case to the reconstituted commission, will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Councillor Maxine Callow, the Conservative leader, for her hard work on Blackpool council? Will he also confirm that one reason why there was such a substantial vote in Blackpool for unitary status was because of the appalling way in which the socialist-controlled Lancashire county council misused council tax payers' money in an appalling propaganda campaign—and even then it lost in Blackpool and Blackburn?

Mr. Gummer: In my unaccustomed role of extreme reticence on party political matters, I will miss out that last but obviously heartfelt comment. I hope very much that Blackpool will have the opportunity to present its case, and the commission will no doubt then consider it very carefully. I noted the very successful campaign which showed that Blackpool felt strongly about recovering its ancient status. We shall have to see what the commission thinks about that.

Mr. John Evans: Is the Secretary of State aware that 21 years ago today I was elected for the then parliamentary constituency of Newton which included an enormous part of the borough of Warrington? Is he aware that the mid-Mersey belt of north-west England is dominated by the three great towns of St. Helens, Wigan and Warrington, and that a Warrington borough, as a unitary authority working in conjunction with the metropolitan districts of St. Helens and Wigan, would have an enormous impact on improving the quality of life and the regeneration of the north-west?

Mr. Gummer: Although I do not know the area anything like as well as the hon. Gentleman, I know it well enough to see that there is a seeming inconsistency with the kind of structure that has been recommended by the boundary commission. That is why I think it would be a good idea if we considered the matter in the way the hon. Gentleman suggests.

Mr. Jacques Arnold: May I thank my right hon. Friend for recognising the significance of the Thames gateway, the rail link and the Ebbsfleet station announcement, all three of which will bring about massive change in north-west Kent? It is quite clear that, by making that a coherent planning whole, it would be very much better carried out by one council than by three.

Mr. Gummer: I was much impressed by the problems that Gravesham would have if it did not have pretty direct control over the way in which planning operates in that part of north Kent. I am also very impressed by the argument that, with the coherence of neighbouring unitary authorities, both Gravesham and Dartford would find themselves less able to deal with the issues that beset

them. After I have discussed the matter with the councils and the county council, the commission may well want to recommend something different.

Mr. Andrew Miller: The Secretary of State will agree that it is important that the proposals gather the most widespread bipartisan support. Against that background, and while I welcome the statement regarding Warrington and Halton—incidentally, half of Halton has been part of Cheshire all its life—will the Secretary of State ensure that the whole of Cheshire is reconsidered in the light of his comments about Halton and Warrington, so that that important bipartisan element is maintained?

Mr. Gummer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point, and I respect the way in which he put it. The difficulty with the bipartisan element is that it is not one which has to be maintained simply in his area. It must be maintained very much more widely.
Therefore, in seeking the right answer, I have tried to take into account the views that I have received from all parts of the House. Sometimes, that is difficult, because one has heard contrary views from neighbouring areas, not just across the boundaries, but within parties. I have tried very hard to get the balance right. I think that I have it right in this respect, but no doubt the hon. Gentleman will write to me to ensure that I do not miss another opportunity to consider the matter.

Mr. Patrick Thompson: Bearing in mind what my right hon. Friend has said about Norfolk, does he recall that, throughout Norfolk, there was a clear majority for the status quo, in response to the commission, both in local polls and in MORI polls? That was also true in Norwich. Therefore, if my right hon. Friend, at a later stage, looks again at the city of Norwich, will he make sure that there really is a clear majority of people within that city who are in favour of any variation?

Mr. Gummer: If I considered Norwich—I have promised my hon. Friend that I will look at the list he gave me—and if I presented it to the commission, I have no doubt that the commission would want to make sure that there was local support, and that local government would be improved by anything that it proposed. I should certainly draw to its attention all the relevant details I have, and that would obviously include any reference that my hon. Friend would like to give me.

Mr. Paddy Tipping: Does the Secretary of State accept that the Local Government Commission was a creature of his own Department's making, and that today's announcement will create further uncertainty? Will he try to remedy matters by ensuring that there is a quick timetable to resolve issues? Staff will be concerned about the matter; they have had a rough deal. Will the right hon. Gentleman increase redundancy terms for affected staff?

Mr. Gummer: I have done my best throughout the discussions to show that I wanted as speedy an answer as possible. I speeded up the matter, and I now propose that we should act as quickly as possible. The hon. Gentleman speaks less than fairly about what is a complicated matter to try to find the next stage on in local government, which is a continuing, evolving system, and I want to get the best answer. The hon. Gentleman speaks with a certain


sourness, because the county council of which he was a member is without doubt one of the least popular county councils in Britain.

Mr. George Walden: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, although it is true that Aylesbury Vale district council put up a not unreasonable case for unitary status, we needed the disruption involved in the demolition of Buckinghamshire county council like a hole in the head? Is he aware also that many of us are greatly relieved to be released from between the nutcracker of the county council and the district council?

Mr. Gummer: I hope that I have done the best for Buckinghamshire—I have tried hard to do that. It is a fine and ancient county, and I hope that we will now have stability there and that all hon. Members from Buckinghamshire will find it possible to support what is inevitably not entirely to everyone's liking.

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Has the two-year journey been wasted? Does the Secretary of State agree that, when all transitional costs are taken into account, it will cost more than £1 billion? It is no use blaming the commission, Banham and all the rest. The truth is that the Secretary of State and his mates have changed the rules and told the commission to review and to review again.
How many people will get the sack as a result of the new venture? How many workers will be made redundant? Would it not have been better to use that £1 billion in local government in order to reduce class sizes, instead of spending it on administration?
Why has the right hon. Gentleman not mentioned Derbyshire? Is it because he will get involved in another political carve-up there? Before he tells me about Derbyshire county council, let me tell him that the councillors have been elected with big majorities ever since 1981. The people liked them and voted for them.

Mr. Gummer: The hon. Gentleman has a characteristic of consistency, which is rare in such local government discussions. He is always opposed to anything that I say or any Conservative Member says, whether he has thought about it or not. The hon. Gentleman is wrong about his figures, wrong about his assessment, and wrong about the views that I have put forward. Local government is too important to be based upon the conservatism of the Member of Parliament for Bolsover.

Mr. David Wilshire: Will my right hon. Friend please add Spelthorne to the list that he will review again? It meets all the requirements that he has listed this afternoon. For reasons of brevity today, I will write to my right hon. Friend, setting out all the justifications, and I hope that he will respond favourably.

Mr. Gummer: I look forward very much to my hon. Friend's letter.

Mr. Colin Pickthall: After two years of turmoil in Lancashire, and, it has to be said, much demoralisation among all councils in Lancashire, is not the referral back of Blackburn and Blackpool for further consideration simply a recipe for extending that turmoil and demoralisation?
Furthermore, is it not an invitation to boroughs such as Burnley and Preston, which have a logical case in view of what the right hon. Gentleman has decided today, to press him to extend what he is saying to them? Even worse from the right hon. Gentleman's point of view, he might get demands from Lancaster as well.

Mr. Gummer: I have not noticed any demoralisation in the hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw) and I did not notice any demoralisation in my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Hawkins), who has already spoken. I have not noticed, either, that the proposal could be demoralising to the people who specifically sought their own unitary authorities in those two places.
However sympathetic we may be to those who work in local government—and I am very sympathetic to them—in the end they work there because of the citizens they serve. If those citizens feel strongly that they would be better served by unitary authorities, at least that idea should be considered. It would be odd to demand that it should not be considered.
I know that the hon. Member for Lancashire, West (Mr. Pickthall) is one of the rare strong supporters of Lancashire county council, so it is odd that he asks, "What about unitaries elsewhere?" I think that I have got the balance about right, and I hope that we shall be able to go forward together on that basis.

Mr. Henry Bellingham: Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North (Mr. Thompson), is my right hon. Friend aware that most people in Norfolk were in favour of the status quo, and will be pleased? But will he also congratulate the borough of King's Lynn in west Norfolk on its excellent campaign for unitary status, which received considerable support in the town? The people there were pleased to meet the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration the other day.

Mr. Gummer: My hon. Friend the Minister of State made a point of telling me that King's Lynn council's presentation seeking unitary status was one of the most excellent that we saw. It was extremely well put forward, and my hon. Friend the Member for Norfolk, North-West (Mr. Bellingham) is fortunate in his local council. I hope that, now that the future is clear, Norfolk county council will carry out its stated desire to give much more local preference to the other local authorities in Norfolk.

Sir Peter Emery: My right hon. Friend has not mentioned Devon as such, but he has mentioned Plymouth, which is in Devon. Will he bear in mind the fact that the commission's original recommendation for Devon, with the exception of Exeter, to remain the same appeared to have obtained general approval? The second recommendation, which means that my right hon. Friend is now considering Exeter, may not really abide by the general view of the people of Devon, and we should like a reply about Devon as soon as possible.

Mr. Gummer: I promise my right hon. Friend as quick a reply as possible on Devon. In the light of what the recommendations of the commission were, it is not proper for me to refer in this statement to an area wider than


Exeter, but I shall continue to consider the proposals for Devon carefully, and I shall make a statement as soon as I can.

Mr. Harold Elletson: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his acceptance of Sir John Banham's recommendation that, after 100 years of service to the people of Lancashire, Lancashire county council should continue in existence.
I accept what he says about the historic status of Blackpool as a county borough, but there will be considerable concern that my right hon. Friend appears to have ignored many of the points that Sir John made in his report about additional transitional costs and about the effect on the ability to deliver services both to the people of Blackpool and throughout Lancashire. I hope that, when the fresh review is constituted, my right hon. Friend will urge Sir John's successor to consider those factors carefully. Can he tell us how long he expects the present period of uncertainty to continue?

Mr. Gummer: There is no uncertainty for the rest of Lancashire, but we shall get this period over as rapidly as possible. I have made no statement about the validity of the Banham remarks about Blackpool. All I have said is that I am offering the opportunity for a newly constituted commission to reconsider Blackpool. No doubt it will take into account all that my hon. Friend has said. It would be wrong to deny to the many people in Blackpool who have sought unitary status the opportunity to have their case considered in the present context rather than in another.

Mr. James Pawsey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that what he said about Warwickshire will be widely welcomed within the shire county? The status quo was desired, and I am grateful to him for agreeing with that. However, he will understand that funding is critical for local authorities. To use his own phrase, the "delegation of responsibility" applies especially to local authorities. Can he therefore say when the cap might be lifted, so that true accountability might be restored to local government?

Mr. Gummer: I fear that this is neither the occasion nor the opportunity so to do.

Dame Elaine Kellett-Bowman: The hon. Member for Preston (Mrs. Wise) said that the majority of people in Lancashire preferred the status quo, but only 5 per cent. voted in favour of that. Since the county council employs no fewer than 47,000 persons, that disposes of most of that 5 per cent.
May I congratulate Blackburn and Blackpool on their good fortune, as they will in all probability escape from the profligacy and inefficiency of Lancashire county council? I much regret that, up to now, liberalisation has not come to Lancaster, which is a historic city, an academic and business centre, a thoroughly composite place and the gateway to the lake district. May I ask my right hon. Friend to reconsider that most lamentable decision?

Mr. Gummer: There are many cities in this country which could well do with the earnest advocacy which my hon. Friend gives to Lancaster. I do not think that anyone in Lancaster could possibly not know that she speaks for the city whenever the opportunity occurs.
My hon. Friend knows the terms under which I sought to produce the list, and she must understand that—following my careful study of the terms—the great city of Lancaster has neither the size nor the nature which would lead it to be in the same sector as the others to which she referred. [HON. MEMBERS: "Just say no."] I will not—as Opposition Members would like—dismiss what my hon. Friend has put forward, and I will look again at the terms. I ought not to give her a huge hope, as hers is a rather different case from others.

Mr. Alan Howarth: While welcoming my right hon. Friend's decision to accept the commission's recommendation in respect of Warwickshire, may I ask whether he agrees that, after 20 years of Treasury rule, local government is not in all respects flourishing as he would wish?
In the reference in his statement to the desirability of self-sustaining communities, was my right hon. Friend in effect saying that, in future, the democratic principle would be better expressed through subsidiarity and local accountability? Does he agree that sauce for the goose must be sauce for gander, and that, just as we insist on subsidiarity between the European Union and the national Government, so we should pursue subsidiarity between the national Government and local authorities—and, moreover, between local authorities and their own communities?

Mr. Gummer: I have always believed in subsidiarity, and it is important that it is applied not just as far as the United Kingdom in the European Union is concerned, but to local authorities. I wish that those authorities which most demand subsidiarity would remember their need to give subsidiarity to schools and all other organisations which are perfectly capable of running themselves, instead of being bossed about by town halls.

Sir David Madel: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there will be great relief in my constituency that it has finally been confirmed that Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard and the villages will not be pushed into a Greater Luton, and that mid-Bedfordshire will not be pushed into a Greater Bedford? Can he confirm that elections for the reconstituted Bedfordshire county council—which we hope will be successful—will be in May 1997?

Mr. Gummer: The elections will be held as planned in May 1997.

Mr. Peter Ainsworth: May I particularly welcome what my right hon. Friend has said about keeping those local authorities such as Surrey, which made commitments in the heat of consultation about devolving and sharing power, up to the mark?
My hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government, Housing and Urban Regeneration, who kindly visited my constituency only yesterday, will know that parish councils command wide popular support. Will my right hon. Friend consider putting back into his recommendations what the commission unaccountably left out—a recommendation for new parish councils in Tandridge district?

Mr. Gummer: I agree with my hon. Friend that Tandridge district is a good example of a well-run local authority. Local authorities are all looking carefully at


what the county councils have promised them. I must say that a number of county councils which hitherto had shown precious little regard for subsidiarity, co-operation or delegation became extremely keen on it when there was any possibility of them being abolished. I have a list of all those clear statements, and I intend to ensure that, as those county councils made the statements, they shall carry them out.

Mr. Patrick McLoughlin: While I welcome my right hon. Friend's announcement about the chairmanship and future membership of the commission, may I express my concern at the time that he is taking to decide on the future of Derbyshire? Some Conservative Members find it difficult to understand how a Local Government Commission can recommend unitary status for Rutland, at 33,000, and ignore every other district that wants the same sort of status. We ought to consider the view that the commission has reported and its consistency, and we should follow the Rutland experiment and give unitary status to districts.

Mr. Gummer: Although I have great sympathy with my hon. Friend's view, my colleagues and I have met a large number of delegations so that we can make those decisions properly. I am sure that he would be the first to be concerned if we had not met the many delegations from every county who wanted to see us. My hon. Friend the Minister of State saw the delegation from High Peak only yesterday, as, like the rest of us, he has been busy listening to people and reading the papers concerned. I will produce an answer as rapidly as possible, but it must be based on an understanding of the issues, and not one rushed through on some ideological basis.

Mr. Edward Garnier: Having listened to the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for West Derbyshire (Mr. McLoughlin), may I presume that I do not need to urge my right hon. Friend to tread carefully on the sensitivities of the people of Leicestershire?

Mr. Gummer: I realise how sensitive are the people of Leicestershire, and I shall tread most delicately. I hope that I will produce an answer that my hon. Friend will like.

Dr. Keith Hampson: If we are going to be truly consistent in trying to reflect national identity, may I suggest that now is the time to consider the powers of the huge unitary authorities in the metropolitan areas, to find out whether those heavy-handed authorities can devolve powers to the diverse communities that they embrace, such as the Otleys, the Wetherbys and the Pudseys in highly centralised Leeds?

Mr. Gummer: Our commitment to devolution runs across local government. Subsidiarity is crucial, and should be pushed right down to the bottom. That is why I am so deeply opposed to regional government, which merely puts another row of persons between people and power. That is a very dangerous thing. We need much more devolution. My hon. Friend is right to say that in

some of the larger unitary authorities, there is too little concern about what people in neighbourhoods, groups and historic parts think. I hope that we can help that extension.

Mr. Rupert Allason: Will my right hon. Friend clarify his remarks about Exeter, and confirm that there is no question of the city being the subject of a review by the newly constituted Local Government Commission, but that he is simply acknowledging the fact that he has had firm recommendations that Exeter should have unitary status?

Mr. Gummer: I have received a recommendation for Devon, and am still considering what my response should be. The recommendation covers my hon. Friend's constituency of Torbay and also Plymouth, but does not refer to Exeter. In my statement I said that, if one was considering places where there was considerable local desire for unitary authority status and, historically, a county borough, it might be reasonable to consider Exeter and to refer it to the commission.
In the context of the decisions that I have to make, having consulted the county council and the area, Exeter is one of the places that I might wish to refer to the commission. The reason that I put it like that is that it seems right to make that statement to the House now for the sake of completeness, but the full completeness can be achieved only after I have decided on the Devon proposals. I will then say whether I think it right to refer Exeter to the new commission.

Dr. Robert Spink: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the people of Essex want less expensive, more effective and more accountable local government services, and that the best way to deliver those is via a unitary authority status organisation, with about seven unitary authorities? Does he deplore the campaign run by Essex county council, at a cost of about £1 million on propaganda, and the way in which Essex county council dragooned its employees into voting on that matter? Will he add Essex to his list of authorities that have made promises to district councils?

Mr. Gummer: Essex county council does not appear to be exactly good at handling its financing. I understand that it has had considerable difficulties this week in trying to meet its proper obligations. Those who suggest that it would be better off under Labour control might like to know that the Labour-led council has fallen apart because of the incompetent way in which it was run.
I condemn councils that have spent unnecessarily on these discussions, whatever party controls them. In this case, Essex county council has set a bad example. But I have on my list some clear commitments about how it will deal with the smaller bodies within it, and I shall keep it to those.

Mr. Harry Barnes: Will the Secretary of State confirm that, in Derbyshire, two MORI polls—there have been two investigations—have shown that people feel that Derby should have a unitary authority and the rest of the county should be a two-tier structure? Should not the Secretary of State make that the overwhelming consideration in coming to a decision on that matter?

Mr. Gummer: I have not decided about Derbyshire yet, as I pointed out earlier to the hon. Member for


Bolsover (Mr. Skinner). Once I have made those decisions, I shall obviously communicate them to the House. I shall look carefully at what is said, and take into account all that is said. However, my view about MORI polls is coloured by the fact that the numbers voting and the nature of the number of people employed by extremely heavy employers like Derbyshire county council might have some effect on what is revealed. I note that the hon. Member for Bolsover was more interested in the employment of people by the local council than in the services that it provided.

Mr. Tony Lloyd: If the Secretary of State is to avoid the same criticism as his predecessor genuinely deserves for the waste of both time and resources, he must give clear, consistent and transparent principles under which the newly constructed commission will operate. It would be helpful to the whole House if he would give an idea of the time scale, both in terms of the 12 outstanding authorities—the papers on those are still on his desk—and when he expects to clear up the uncertainties on that matter; as well as the time scale for the general review process, so that the uncertainty surrounding it may be brought to an end.
I welcome the Secretary of State's decision to meet relevant trade unions, which will reassure staff. Will he look clearly at the view that the present settlement has been unsatisfactory? Does he accept that, although the list he gave contains many of the authorities that need looking at again, it should be supplemented with those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson)—particularly The Wrekin and Norwich, where there is a strong case for unitary status?

Mr. Gummer: I thank the hon. Gentleman for most of those comments. I do not agree with his earlier comments. This is a contentious issue that divides hon. Members within parties, not just across the Floor of the House. In many cases, the commission found itself with a problem whereby not many people had a view about how local government should be structured, although all people had a view about the price they should pay and the services that they wanted. The connection between those and the organisation is sometimes difficult for people to make.
The commission was also hampered by the fact that large numbers of authorities—many more than I would have hoped—ran campaigns that were little short of scandalous in the statements that they made and their attempts to frighten people. Many local councillors will

have good reason to look back on this period with considerable sadness. It did local government no good when some councils made threats to school governors, such as suggesting that there would be no education if they were made into unity authorities.
The commission had a difficult job to do, and it has carried it out much more quickly than was originally supposed. I wanted to ensure that it was done with that speed, because I understand the problems that beset people who work for local authorities, and I wanted to try to meet them.
Now that we have reached this stage, we have a sensible way of producing the answers we want. Those answers are the answers of decent local government, providing a proper service, with an enabling council able to ensure that people have the services they need at a reasonable price. I hope that I can deliver that. I hope, too, that the commission will be able to consider those councils that I have mentioned. I will carefully consider the councils that the hon. Members for Stretford (Mr. Lloyd) and for Holborn and St. Pancras (Mr. Dobson) have suggested.
On the time scale, the new commission will be in place in June. During the period till then, we shall be producing the guidelines. I accept that the concepts that might have been taken for granted in the past must be clearly expressed in the guidelines. I shall certainly ensure that I do that, and that will be subject to consultation, not only with Opposition Members, but more widely, with local authorities.
I hope that then the new commission will be able to start its work in July, and I expect that it would try to fulfil that as quickly as it could, but it is not for me to tell it how quickly to do it. I merely assure the House that I will provide the commission with the resources it needs to do so in a reasonable time.
There are no announcements sitting on my desk about those remaining counties, waiting for me to read them. Those counties are subject to considerable consultation, and a great deal of work has been done listening to delegations from the various parts of the counties. I have now almost completed that. I hope very much to be able to complete the work on them myself with my colleagues, and I would expect to be able to make a further statement to the House about those in the very near future. I have to try to do so as soon as possible, not least because it is necessary for the proper and conventional gap between that and the forthcoming local county council elections.

Business of the House

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Tony Newton): With permission, I should like to make a statement about the business for next week.

MONDAY 6 MARCH—Second Reading of the Criminal Appeal Bill.

TUESDAY 7 MARCH—Opposition Day (9th allotted day). There will be a debate entitled "The Position of Women in Britain" on an Opposition motion.

WEDNESDAY 8 MARCH—Until 2.30 pm, there will be debates on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.

Until 7 o'clock, motion on the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989 (Continuance) Order.

Followed by a motion on the Appropriation (Northern Ireland) Order.

THURSDAY 9 MARCH—Until about 7 o'clock, proceedings on the South Africa Bill [Lords].

Followed by a motion to approve the first report of the Broadcasting Committee on developing the parliamentary broadcasting archives.

FRIDAY 10 MARCH—The House will not be sitting.

The House will also wish to know that European Standing Committee B will meet on Wednesday 8 March at 10.30 am to consider the unnumbered explanatory memorandum submitted by Her Majesty's Treasury on 23 November 1994 relating to the European Court of Auditors' annual report for the financial year 1993, together with replies from the institutions.

[Wednesday 8 March:

European Standing Committee B—Relevant European Community document: unnumbered, Report of the Court of Auditors for 1993; relevant report of the European Legislation Committee: HC 70-ii (1994–95).]

On Monday 13 March I anticipate proposing the Second Reading of the Gas Bill. I am still considering the exact pattern of business for the rest of the week, but the House may find it helpful to know that on Thursday 16 March I anticipate that Government business will be taken until 7 o'clock, and that that will be followed by a debate on a motion for the Adjournment.

Mrs. Ann Taylor: I thank the Leader of the House for that information. Who will speak for the Government in next Tuesday's debate, on the eve of International Women's Day, on the position of women in Britain?
The Leader of the House will, I hope, acknowledge that when the statement on Barings was made on Monday, the Chancellor was, understandably, unable to answer many questions because full information was not available. Will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for a statement to be made next week to give the House further information, specifically on the 43 pension funds that have been managed by Barings, including a proportion of the London Transport pension fund, about which many people must be worried, and on the charities whose assets are held by Barings and are now frozen? A specific statement on those issues would help many people.
The Leader of the House will be aware of the considerable interest, inside and outside the House, in the Prime Minister's apparent U-turn on executive pay. As

Ministers do not appear to know whether they would support an amendment to the Finance Bill or to the Gas Bill a week on Monday, or indeed whether legislation is needed at all, and as the Greenbury committee may not report for some time, would it not be a good idea for the Government to initiate a debate in the House on executive pay and share options, so that the most effective way of tackling those abuses can be found and action taken as quickly as possible, not least because of the wide public concern? May we have a promise that such a debate will take place, or are we to assume that the Prime Minister's statement was merely hot air or window dressing?
The Government announced today that spending on higher education will increase next year by less than the rate of inflation. I am sure that the Leader of the House is aware that the vice-chancellor of Essex university criticised that decision today, and said that the future will be bleak if we do not invest in education.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett) has issued figures today showing that cuts of about £320 million will be made in school budgets next year. When can we expect the Secretary of State for Education to explain to the House the freeze and squeeze in higher education and the dangers associated with the increase in class sizes, which is alarming parents, school governors and teachers alike? The Secretary of State for Education has not been to the Dispatch Box to defend her budgeting since she half promised to do so in the debate that was initiated by the Opposition.

Mr. Newton: I thought that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education made her position and her expectations and the position about funding absolutely clear in the debate to which the hon. Lady referred, but I will bring her remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend.
On executive pay, again, as on a number of occasions during yesterday's debate, I wondered whether Opposition Members were listening to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was saying to them. I thought that he said straightforwardly that the Government would wish to consider the recommendations of the Greenbury committee, including anything that it might say about the need for legislation, and would then consider those matters at the appropriate time. I did not think that there was any room for misunderstanding about that, and I see no reason to respond to the hon. Lady in the positive way that I would normally seek to do.
The hon. Lady will be aware that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor said that issues arising from Barings had been referred to the Board of Banking Supervision. On most of the issues, it would obviously be right to see what emerges from its inquiries, but I acknowledge that the hon. Lady has referred to a number of worrying matters that obviously need to be taken into account. I will bring those remarks to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor.
Our participation in next Tuesday's debate is still under consideration, but I anticipate that at least one of the speeches will be made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mrs. Browning), who recently became chairman of the Women's National Commission.

Sir Norman Fowler: Will my right hon. Friend arrange for a Government statement or debate about housing renewal grants in Birmingham? Is he aware of the great public anxiety about that issue, that that


concern will not he satisfied by an internal party investigation, that public money and the misuse of public money are at stake, and that what is needed is an independent investigation and an assurance that such abuse is not taking place anywhere else?

Mr. Newton: My right hon. Friend refers rightly to the need for an independent investigation, and I understand that the district auditor has followed the proper course and is investigating the allegations that have been made.
My right hon. Friend must also understand that I must be somewhat restrained in my comments about the matter. However, in one sense, the scale of the Leader of the Opposition's intervention and the implications of that action speak for themselves. In those circumstances, the Opposition might feel that it is an appropriate subject for discussion on their next Supply day.

Ms Liz Lynne: Will the Leader of the House make time for an urgent debate on the plight of unpaid carers, especially in view of the report from SCOPE—formerly the Spastics Society—which found that many unpaid carers suffer grave financial hardship? Unpaid carers contribute a lot to this country, for which they have a right to be recognised.

Mr. Newton: The hon. Lady will know, I hope, that she is addressing a sympathetic ear. When I was a Minister at the Department of Social Security, I was responsible for extending the invalid care allowance to married women and for a number of other measures designed to recognise and underpin more clearly the position of unpaid carers. It is clear from everything that my right hon. and hon. Friends have done in the spheres of social security and health in recent times that they too are concerned about supporting unpaid carers and about recognising the contribution that they make.

Sir Ivan Lawrence: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there has not been a full House of Commons debate on the Commonwealth since 1987? Since then, not only have we been joined by Namibia, Pakistan and South Africa, but a number of strains have developed within the Commonwealth—such as the Cyprus question—that must be addressed. Will my right hon. Friend choose the week beginning Monday 13 March—Commonwealth Day—for a debate on the subject of the Commonwealth?

Mr. Newton: There will be some opportunity to refer to such matters next Thursday, 9 March in the debate that I announced on the South Africa Bill. There is continuing uncertainty about the nature of business on Thursday, 16 March. In the circumstances, I clearly cannot make a commitment, but I will bear my hon. and learned Friend's suggestion in mind.

Mr. Tom Cox: Is the Leader of the House aware of the damning indictment of the district auditor, Mr. Rowland Little, of the behaviour of Wandsworth council in breaking the law for many years when rehousing homeless families in the borough? As the hon. Member for Croydon, Central (Sir P. Beresford), a junior Environment Minister, was chairman of that housing authority for three years, when can we expect a statement on his future?

Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman might have acknowledged that the auditor found no evidence of improper purpose or wilful misconduct, no evidence that

the council took account of irrelevant considerations, no evidence of financial loss to the council and nothing to suggest that any council member or officer did not believe in the lawfulness of the council's actions.

Mr. Harry Greenway: May we have a debate next week on the effect of the action by the Channel 4 television programme "The Word" in paying for another trip by the 14-year-old boy who travelled to Malaysia using his father's passport and credit cards? That sets an extremely bad example to other young people. The boy's parents are apparently under contract to some news magazine and therefore cannot comment on or support that disgraceful decision.

Mr. Newton: I am sure that my hon. Friend's remarks will be studied carefully by those at whom they are directed. I will draw them to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage.

Mr. Greville Janner: Is the Minister aware that yet another child has died as a result of choking on a pen top? Does he remember that my young constituent, Billy Walker, died in that way some time ago, as a result of which the Government introduced a trading standard? May we have a debate on the need to ban not merely unsafe pens produced in this country but those that are imported from overseas, to ensure that there are no more unnecessary deaths of this nature?

Mr. Newton: The safety of pen caps on sale in the United Kingdom—whether they are imported or manufactured locally—is covered by the General Product Safety Regulations 1994 and by a British standard requiring the ventilation of pen caps intended for children up to 14 years of age. Of course, contravention of those regulations is a criminal offence and local authority trading standards officers have the power to remove unsafe products from the market and to bring prosecutions. I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman will convey his concerns to the relevant authorities in Leicester, and I will also draw them to the attention of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Harold Elletson: Will the Leader of the House find time for a statement or a debate on the consultation paper on tourism that the Department of National Heritage issued this week? Does he agree that it emphasises the Government's commitment to the tourism industry and that it marks the beginning of a new drive for higher standards, quality and real value for money in tourism and leisure, which is Britain's fastest growing industry?

Mr. Newton: I am aware of the document that was published this week, which contains an action plan for a variety of bodies and which will assist the industry to take advantage of the opportunities that the growing market in tourism represents. I share my hon. Friend's hope that full advantage will be taken of those opportunities.

Mr. John McAllion: The Minister will be aware that yesterday the Government suffered a humiliating defeat in the Committee that considered the Local Government (Compensation for Redundancy or Premature Retirement on Reorganisation) (Scotland) Regulations 1995—the Government's inadequate


compensation scheme for local government workers who were made redundant as a result of local government reorganisation in Scotland.
Technically, the Government can simply ignore that defeat because the statutory instrument was introduced under the negative resolution procedure. However, past Governments who have been defeated in that way have recognised their obligation to take account of the defeat by reintroducing the statutory instrument for further consideration by the whole House. Will the Minister assure hon. Members that he will continue that honourable tradition, recognise the fact that his Government have been defeated, and give the House a second chance to consider that important measure?

Mr. Newton: The only possible response to the hon. Gentleman is: nice try. As I understand it, the humiliation was the Opposition's. All but two Opposition Members on the Committee failed to turn up to debate the matter, and the rest magically arrived only just in time to vote when the debate had finished. I am sure that that brought joy to the heart of the shadow deputy Chief Whip, but others may make their own judgments.
I also understand that, during the last Labour Administration, a similar incident occurred on four occasions—which shows that my hon. Friends are just as good at their job as the shadow deputy Chief Whip is at his—none of which resulted in matters being referred back to the Floor of the House.

Sir Peter Emery: The whole House is pleased that my right hon. Friend has moved on the recommendations of the Procedure Committee and the Jopling Committee and has announced two weeks' business at the same time. He announced the business for Monday 13 March, when there will probably be a Division at 10 o'clock, and for Thursday 16 March, when there could be a Division at 7 o'clock, but he has left the 14th and the 15th blank. If possible, will he consider announcing what the business on particular days will be? If he has to adjust it later, the House will understand, but it would help hon. Members if my right hon. Friend could move in that direction.

Mr. Newton: I think that it is absolutely clear to everyone that I have been trying to move in that direction. I had hoped to move a little further today, but representations made to me led me to allow certain matters to be discussed further in accordance with the proper spirit of the usual channels.

Rev. Martin Smyth: May I support the hon. and learned Member for Burton (Sir I. Lawrence) in his plea for a debate on the Commonwealth? Can the Leader of the House help us in regard to Tuesday's debate, which is on an Opposition Supply day? Is there a particular problem affecting women in England and Wales that does not affect those in Scotland and Northern Ireland, or is it a secret acknowledgement that the Labour party is supporting the independence of Scotland and Northern Ireland?

Mr. Newton: This is one of the occasions when I think that the hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mrs. Taylor) should be able to reply to questions. I am not sure whether she has even heard this one. I wonder whether the hon.

Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) might draw her attention to the fact that a question has just been asked that is really for her and not for me. It related to why next Tuesday's debate is concerned only with the position of women in Britain, which has obviously caused some affront in Northern Ireland. I am not responsible for the debate or for its title. The hon. Gentleman's question, which is a fascinating one, should be directed to the hon. Lady.

Mr. Jacques Arnold: May we have a debate on youth provision, so that we can consider the decision of Labour-controlled Avon county council to cut its grants to the Avon Scout Association, the Boy's Brigade and to many other groups within the county, most of which are uniformed groups of youths? Perhaps we can contrast the fact that it is cutting grants to youth groups, yet introducing a grant to an organisation known as "Bristol Young Lesbian and Bisexual Women's Group". Why is Avon county council unable to fund proper youth organisations, but only loony-left nonsense?

Mr. Newton: You, Madam Speaker, will perhaps understand that, in anticipating a question from my hon. Friend, I had prepared for every possible question about Kent but not for a question about Avon.

Mr. Tony Banks: May we have a debate on football and the plight of football supporters? No one in the House will support hooliganism, but at the Bruges v. Chelsea match, many respectable and decent British citizens found themselves subject to some heavy police activity and prevented from going to the match. The House should condemn hooliganism but stand up for decent people who are badly treated at football matches at home and abroad. May we have a debate on the matter?

Mr. Dennis Skinner: It is a pity that they did not lock up the Prime Minister and the right hon. and learned Member for Putney (Mr. Mellor) as well.

Mr. Newton: I am not surprised that the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) should be trying to divert attention. Just two weeks ago, in response to something that happened in Ireland, he was demanding more heavy-handed action than appeared to have taken place.

Mr. Skinner: No, I did not.

Mr. Newton: Perhaps that shows the difficulty of getting the balance right. Two weeks ago, everybody was asking, "Why has somebody not done more?" Today, someone is asking, "Why has somebody done so much?" It is an inherently difficult problem and we should acknowledge that.

Mr. Anthony Coombs: May we have a debate next week on local government to bring to the attention of the House the latest sad example of incompetence and waste by Labour-controlled Birmingham city council? I refer, in particular, to its intention to pursue a legal action against Sutton Coldfield college of further education and the College of Food from Birmingham. A lower court recently found that Birmingham city council had illegally transferred £13.6 million, which was intended for those colleges for training


purposes, to prestige projects in the city. As legal action so far has cost about £200,000 and interest on the bill is £2,000 a week, is it not a matter for the district auditor?

Mr. Newton: I am not sure whether it would be a matter for the district auditor, who appears to have a growing amount on his plate from Birmingham, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education might wish to consider what my hon. Friend has described, especially in view of some of the observations at the start of business questions on the funding of further and higher education.

Madam Speaker: Business questions are getting long and convoluted and we have other business to conduct this afternoon and evening. I shall do my best to call hon. Members, but will they please ask brisk questions? I am sure that the Leader of the House will give brisk answers.

Mr. John Denham: May I remind the Leader of the House that a year ago I introduced a private Member's Bill designed to relieve the problems of council leaseholders who cannot sell their flats and who face huge bills? At the time, faced with a huge public lobby, the Government promised action; a year later, there has been no action. May we have a debate on the problems faced by council leaders and a promise of action that will be followed up by the Government?

Mr. Newton: The hon. Gentleman may have an opportunity to put that very question to the Secretary of State for the Environment, if he feels it appropriate, on Wednesday 15 March.

Mr. George Galloway: May I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to early-day motion 582?
[That this House is gravely concerned at the unsolved murder, in a British military barracks in Germany, of Christina Menzies the 16 year old daughter of Staff Sergeant John Menzies and his wife Christine; is concerned at reports of poor police work by the Military Police investigating the murder and poor legal work by the Military Police Prosecutor; and, in the light of the acquittal of the accused, Corporal Fisher, and the statement by the Military Police that they were no longer looking for any other suspect, asks the obvious question whether the murderer of Christina Menzies is still at large within the British armed forces.]
It deals with the bungling by the military police and the incompetence of the military prosecuting authorities who investigated the murder of my constituent, Christina Menzies. As a result of that bungling and incompetence, Corporal Darren Fisher, who killed my constituent, has literally got away with murder and is currently at large in a military establishment in Telford, Shropshire. Does the Leader of the House understand that British military justice and law is increasingly seen as an ass and many cases and issues are now backing up? We urgently need a debate, so that the system of courts martial and the way in which justice is dispensed in the armed forces, especially when crimes are committed against civilians, as in my constituent's case, can be brought under democratic control and modernised so that police and prosecuting work is up to standard, as it should be.

Mr. Newton: I shall obviously bring those remarks to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the

Secretary of State for Defence, but I understand that the prosecuting officer in the case was a qualified lawyer who had experience of prosecuting charges of unlawful killing.

Mr. Cynog Dafis: Will the Leader of the House arrange for a debate on the first conference on the climate change convention, which will be held towards the end of March, particularly in view of increasing anxiety and alarm and the accumulating evidence that global warming is occurring? Will he arrange for the Government to make a statement on how they plan to achieve carbon dioxide emission reductions by the end of the century and introduce further targets for reductions as soon as possible?

Mr. Newton: Those matters are under consideration at present, in relation not just to the conference in Berlin at the end of the month but to the Council of Environment Ministers next week. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment will make the British Government's position clear as and when it is appropriate.

Mr. Jimmy Wray: Will the Leader of the House find time to debate the alarming boom in the economy of Colombia as 70 per cent. of its gross national product comes from the growth of coke, which has expanded from 1,000 hectares to 200,000 hectares in a very short time? That expansion has manifested itself in drug abuse and drug-related crime throughout Europe and the United Kingdom.

Mr. Newton: I think that the right course would be for me to ensure that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is made aware of the hon. Gentleman's remarks. As chairman of the Government's committee on drug misuse, I attach great importance to anything that can be done in Britain or abroad to reduce both the demand and the supply of drugs.

Mr. David Jamieson: Has the Leader of the House seen the article in today's edition of Today, quoting Judge Stephen Tumim saying that Derek Lewis was not the first choice as director general of Her Majesty's prisons, but was appointed because of his support for the privatisation of prisons? May we expect a statement next week from the Home Secretary on why the recommendations of the interviewing panel were turned down and why we did not have the best person for the job?

Mr. Newton: I must simply repeat what was said previously. The appointment of the director general was approved by the civil service commissioners in the normal way. Three candidates were assessed as being of an acceptable standard. They were then interviewed by the then Home Secretary and the board then reconvened.

Ms Glenda Jackson: The Leader of the House will recall the Prime Minister's confirmation during Tuesday's Question Time that automatic train protection is being reconsidered. As the Government have given an absolute commitment to the installation of automatic train protection throughout the entire British Rail network for the past six years, will he ensure that there is a statement, or preferably a debate, on


the matter, so that we can examine why the Government are reneging on yet another promise that impacts so strongly on the safety of the travelling public?

Mr. Newton: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport is considering advice from the Health and Safety Commission and from Railtrack on British Rail's report on automatic train protection. An announcement will be made in due course and that would be the appropriate time at which to consider a debate.

Mr. Peter Hain: May I press the Leader of the House again for a statement on the district auditor's report on Wandsworth council? The right hon. Gentleman failed to mention in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Mr. Cox) that in paragraph 6.9 the district auditor specifically states that the council had acted unlawfully in selling thousands of empty properties to Tory supporters and putting homeless families on the streets. How can the Minister with responsibility for housing in London remain in office when as leader of Wandsworth council he was responsible for that policy and escaped surcharge by the skin of his teeth? He must go, or is law breaking penetrating the heart of the Government?

Mr. Newton: I will not repeat what I said in my earlier answer. In the light of what I have already said, any suggestion that my hon. Friend should resign is quite nonsensical.

Mr. Michael Connarty: Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Secretaries of State for the various parts of the United Kingdom to make statements on the progress of clinical trials of beta interferon to treat some of the more virulent symptoms of multiple sclerosis? When I raised this matter before on behalf of my constituent, Kenneth Deering, I was promised that clinical trials would start, but my studies have shown that there seems to be sporadic individual prescription for beta interferon in one of its four forms to people who have multiple sclerosis. However, there is no indication of progress towards clinical trials that will allow it to be prescribed to the thousands of multiple sclerosis sufferers who are waiting for it to be made available.

Mr. Newton: As the quite active president of my local MS society, I certainly share the hon. Gentleman's interest in this matter. I shall bring his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health.

Mr. Derek Enright: Is the Leader of the House aware that it is said that the six members of the Greenbury committee earn more than £4 million between them? Will he ask the Prime Minister to look urgently into that, set up an inquiry, and report back to the House?

Mr. Newton: I shall not add to what I said earlier. I do not accept the suggestion that members of the Greenbury committee are incapable of looking seriously and objectively at serious public issues.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: The Leader of the House must be aware that three times this week hon. Members have raised the question of the treatment of Sita Kamara, an asylum seeker in this country. Hon. Members

make daily representations to the Home Office about the conditions under which asylum seekers are kept and about the fact that more than 700 are currently in custody in detention centres and prisons in this country. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is necessary for the House to be able to debate the whole question of the treatment of asylum seekers, the refusal of asylum and the plight that those who are forcibly deported from this country face when they go back to the country from which they tried to flee in the first place?

Mr. Newton: As the hon. Gentleman says, the matter has been raised on a number of occasions. I have no doubt that a number of responses have been given and I certainly do not intend to add further to those.

Mr. Harry Barnes: After tomorrow's business, two private Members' Bills are likely to be presented to the House. They are highly significant and have wide support in the House and throughout the country. They are the Wild Mammals (Protection) Bill and the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill. Given that support, should there not at least be discussions through the usual channels with the Leader of the House to see whether a second Committee can be set up to deal with private Members' Bills? They are not pushed for Government business and we need to make progress in the two areas covered by the Bills in accordance with the will of the House.

Mr. Newton: I realise that it will disappoint the hon. Gentleman when I tell him that I have no plans for changing the ordinary arrangements for dealing with private Members' Bills, which have applied for many years.

Mr. Kevin Barron: Will the Leader of the House ask the Secretary of State for Employment to make a statement next week about an allegation in a newspaper today that the Department of Employment intends to withdraw one of the calculations of regional unemployment on the basis that it shows higher, more truthful unemployment than the calculation that it is proposed to replace?

Mr. Newton: My right hon. Friend will be here to answer questions on Tuesday and I shall give him advance notice of that one.

Mr. Tom Clarke: Is the Leader of the House aware that his reassuring reply to the hon. Member for Rochdale (Ms Lynne) on the SCOPE report on carers and his reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) are not consistent? Does he accept that the procedures of the House for private Members' Bills, to which he has just referred, were quite disgracefully abused last year by Conservative Members? In an effort to bring some sanity back to the situation, will he agree to allow appropriate time to the Government Bill on disability, which has just left Committee and which is based on reasonable exchanges on both sides? If necessary, will he grant two days for discussion, and ensure that the Bill presented by my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East, which did not have one vote against its Second Reading, and the Bill to be introduced tomorrow by my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks), will be given


sufficient parliamentary time for reasonable debate? If that does not happen, the House will continue to be held in disrepute.

Mr. Newton: I cannot add to what I said to the hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) in respect of procedures generally. The first part of the hon. Gentleman's question implies that he expects the Government to adopt an unconstructive approach to the Bill to be presented by the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. Wicks). Perhaps he will examine with care what my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will say if he gets the opportunity tomorrow.

Mr. Paul Flynn: When may we have a debate on early-day motion 685?
[That this House calls for St. David's Day to be declared a bank holiday in Wales; notes that no other country in the British Isles or the European Union in 1995 will have fewer holidays than Wales (and England); congratulates the seven cities in the USA that will declare St. David's Day a special holiday; and believes that the ancient and popular celebrations of the Welsh national day should be honoured and elevated to the full status of a public holiday.]
The motion calls for St. David's day to be made a bank holiday in Wales and states that Wales has fewer holidays than almost every country in the British Isles and the European Union. Has the right hon. Gentleman noticed that the early-day motion has been signed by 30 Welsh Members, which represents more than 90 per cent. of Welsh Members who are eligible to sign early-day motions? Is he not concerned that yesterday the Prime Minister in a one-word reply said that he would not act on this call from democratically elected Welsh Members? Is not that a contemptible way to treat the elected representatives of the Welsh nation?

Mr. Newton: I am afraid that I do not agree that it is. If we were to accede to the request and if that was followed by a request for Parliament to have a day off in consequence, which seems to be the natural concomitant, the hon. Gentleman would find himself in conflict with his hon. Friends the Members for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) and for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes).

Points of Order

Mr. Tony Banks: On a point of order, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker: It would not be a normal day without a point of order from the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Banks: That is slightly unkind, but I shall have to stand here and take it.
Perhaps you could give the House guidance and direction, Madam Speaker. As my hon. Friend the Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) has reminded us, tomorrow we shall debate the Wild Mammals (Protection) Bill. It is possible that under our procedures someone from the pro-hunting lobby will attempt to talk it out. It will be necessary for us to have 100 hon. Members here, which is rather a large number for a Friday. Letters are circulating and advice is being given to hon. Members by those from the pro-hunting lobby that there will be no vote tomorrow. That is untrue. My hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton (Mr. McFall) is quite insistent that there will be at least one and probably two votes. It seems that there is an element of dirty tricks and I hope that you will make it quite clear to all hon. Members that you would not approve or condone attempts to sabotage a private Members' Bill.

Madam Speaker: It is very difficult to sabotage private Members' Bills. As the hon. Gentleman may well know, that was not a point of order but a point of information and publicity, which he handled rather well. Perhaps we may now move to the Adjournment motion.

Mr. Michael Stephen: On a point of order, Madam Speaker. Has it ever been known for the hon. Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) to sabotage a private Member's Bill?

Madam Speaker: I am in the business not of sabotage but of getting on with the debate on Welsh affairs. The Welsh have waited a long time for that.

Welsh Affairs

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Burns.]

The Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. John Redwood): Yesterday, we celebrated a great figure from Wales's past. St. David believed in being joyful. The Labour party would do well to heed him. I trust that it will break the habit of a lifetime and use the debate to spread some joy and hope.
Today, we herald a great future. In the past year, manufacturing output has surged; big urban renewal schemes are under way; and each manufacturing worker produced 6 per cent. more. Since the end of 1992, 25,000 people have come off the dole. We are leading Europe in exporting televisions and we are beating the world at producing steel. That is not a description of South Korea or Taiwan. That is Wales in 1994, and 1995 will be even better.
The television programme could ask, "How did they do that?" We did it by changing attitudes, by attracting investors, by cutting interest rates, and by believing in Wales. [Interruption.] We hear already how much Opposition Members dislike it. They know that Wales is on the move in the right direction and that Conservative policies are bringing economic success.
The pace of change is pulling the successful forward at an ever-accelerating speed. The danger is that we shall leave behind the less successful—some people, some towns, even some areas. I want to show that all of Wales and all of her people can benefit.

Mr. Donald Anderson: Will the Secretary of State assist the House? Despite all those wonderful benefits that he and his Administration have brought to Wales, why do the wicked people of Wales refuse to give him the credit, and why, after two years of his rule, is the Conservative rating the lowest in history?

Mr. Redwood: It is real votes in the ballot box at a general election that count. I look forward to that challenge, as there is much more work to be done and more good news before we reach that happy occasion when more Conservative Members of Parliament are elected to represent Wales, to continue and to support the good work of their colleagues.

Mr. Peter Hain: The Secretary of State spoke of joy in Wales and of the upbeat view of the economy. How does that square with the report last week that more than 200 people queued through the night at Neath and Port Talbot jobcentres, not for actual jobs, but for application forms from British Steel for jobs that might arise? A 64-year-old woman, a constituent of mine, queued in the morning and found that the jobcentre had run out of application forms. We are going back to the 1930s; we are not going forward to the next century.

Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman is right. There are still too many people without jobs. I have always accepted that and I have said that we need many more jobs. Today, I shall be sketching more ideas on how those jobs will arise, but the hon. Gentleman should recognise that Welsh unemployment overall is down to the United Kingdom average, that the UK average is well below the continental

average, and that 25,000 families in Wales are much happier because one of their members has found a job since December 1992, when unemployment was unacceptably high.

Mr. David Hanson: In his list, the Secretary of State did not mention wages. Does he accept that people in Wales are still paid far less than people in any other region in the UK? If he will not support the minimum wage that the Labour party wants, what other measures will he introduce today to ensure that wages rise in Wales?

Mr. Redwood: Of course we want higher wages, which have to be earned. They are earned by skills and by adapting to more sophisticated manufacturing techniques. That is happening in many parts of Wales, including in the hon. Gentleman's constituency. I shall outline some more measures that we are continuing with and that will help.

Mr. Alan Williams: If we are doing so well, will the Secretary of State explain a simple situation? How is it that, 15 years into the life of this highly successful Government, unemployment is still 50,000 higher than it was when they came to office? How much longer will it be before they get unemployment back down to the 1979 level?

Mr. Redwood: Chronic overmanning and deep structural problems existed in some industries in Wales in 1979, but the good news is that we have done a much better job than many countries on the continent in reducing unemployment. Our relative performance is good, but I want more real jobs, just as the right hon. Gentleman does.
New industry and new services need not pass any part of Wales by on the other side. If the Vale of Glamorgan can have a high living standard and low unemployment—as it does—so can Bridgend. If Caerphilly can, nothing is stopping Merthyr from doing so. It is not written in the stars that some places will do well and others badly. Holyhead has been a bustling port in the past. Merthyr was once the centre of new industry and new technology. Both have promising tomorrows. Today's equivalent of pioneering by puddling in the steel industry is messages by multi-media.

Mr. Ieuan Wyn Jones: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for taking time to mention Holyhead, which clearly has a bright future. He will recognise the important development that is taking place at the port, with substantial investment, which I hope will be backed with European Union funding. Will he give the House an assurance that the Welsh Office will do everything possible both to facilitate the grant and to make strong representations to the European Commission that that grant should be approved?

Mr. Redwood: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman admits that a good future is in prospect for the port. I agree that more work needs to be done and that more investment needs to he made. Of course the Welsh Office will do anything in its power to assist in the way that he suggests and in other ways.

Mr. Allan Rogers: It is without any great pride that I represent one of the most deprived constituencies not just in Wales, but in the UK. We have


had a lot of talk from a succession of Secretaries of State of this Government about inward investment and improvement, but the real fact is that unemployment in the Rhondda is still running at about 20 per cent. and that youth unemployment is as high as 80 or 90 per cent. What will the Secretary of State do about that? He said that the Rhondda can perform as well as the Vale of Glamorgan, but without practical investment in our valley communities, this downward spiral of depopulation will continue because of the lack of investment in the infrastructure.

Mr. Redwood: Of course we need more investment. There will be public investment and private investment. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I have taken action to encourage more of such investment and, like him, I am impatient to get on with the job.
It has taken the actions of the cyber cops in the United States of America to dramatise the Internet. Once a complex idea for computer super-literates, it has exploded into all too earthly life with stories of theft, fraud and pornography on that new ring main of world power. The net and its successors are ways of ensuring that no city, town or hamlet of Wales need be cut off from the next century. Geography does not debar Wales from economic success in a world shifting eastwards. History proves that false, and common sense confirms it.

Mr. Alex Carlile: I welcome what the Secretary of State has said. Does he mean that areas such as rural mid-Wales will gain assistance from the Welsh Office in attempts to include them in the information super-highway? If so, that is a welcome announcement.

Mr. Redwood: I have already said that if grant is needed I shall consider carefully how we could give that under the various powers that we have.
The cabling of Newport, Swansea and Cardiff is under way. Applications have been invited to cable the rest of the valleys and the Vale of Glamorgan. Before the year is out, I want to see a franchise for north Wales. Mid-Wales and west Wales should join in.
British Telecom has always said that it wants to be able to offer a full range of services, using its existing cables where possible. It is more than welcome to offer to do that in any unlicensed area of Wales. Recently, I have been talking to cable companies. They are considering using radio links in less populated areas, which might solve the problem. I am told that it is possible to sling trunk fibre over pylons and maybe on to telegraph poles where routes are available. Between those methods, we must find a way to ensure that mid-Wales and west Wales are part of the system.
What matters just as much as installing the cable or making the links is the use that we make of that. Work is on hand to wire Celtic Lakes industrial park so that it can take the whole range of multi-media business services. I hope that other parks will follow. Cardiff bay can become a teleport.
This week, Super-JANET has become something of a new heroine in the House. A sum of £5.5 million is being spent this year by colleges in Wales to turn JANET into Super-JANET and to equip the colleges for the next century with multi-media technology.

Dr. Kim Howells: I want to ask the Secretary of State not about "SuperTed" or Super-JANET

but about equipping colleges. The biggest education institution in Wales is the university of Glamorgan. Will the Secretary of State ensure that the distribution of the millennium fund takes into account the university's dire need for new buildings and capital projects, which it wants now? I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman agrees that it fulfils a vital role in Welsh educational life and—if he wants to use super-highway terminology—in the interface between industry and education.

Mr. Redwood: In so far as it is proper for me to intervene in the millennium fund, I shall do everything in my power. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for National Heritage, who has more influence than I have in these matters, will be shown the text of the hon. Gentleman's intervention and my response. I hope that Wales proposes many good projects for millennium funding, and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman is right when he says that education is one service that could benefit. He is also right to say that the university of Glamorgan is most important. I have stepped up capital investment in colleges in the past year or so and I intend to continue to do so as there is a backlog of work to be done.
I want BT to offer enough cable capacity at a sensible and realistic price. I am looking into allegations that there are some difficulties with band width and pricing for some of the links in mid-Wales.

Mr. Hain: I apologise for intervening again and I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way. I find his remarks about BT interesting. I know that BT would be willing to offer fibre optic cabling in, for example, some of the Neath valleys but it is barred by Government regulation from offering entertainment as well as telephony. Will the Secretary of State consider restricted ring-fenced projects in unlicensed areas which would enable it to do so and thereby bring fibre optic super-highway opportunities to many remote areas?

Mr. Redwood: I regret to say that, geographically, much of Wales is still unlicensed, which is why I am trying to drive forward the work quickly. We are now close to a licence for a large new area in Wales. Yes, there is an offer to BT to offer the whole range of services to the unlicensed areas if it were the most sensible prospect on the table. I openly invite BT again to bid on that basis if it would like to do so. Let it not be said that there is a ban on BT operating well in Wales, other than in that small area of Wales which is already licensed under different terms.
Whereas St. David preached from a patch of grass and turned it into a hill, the modern Welsh academic will communicate across a phone line and will, I trust, broaden its band width into a range of new services. Today, I am also offering an additional £3 million for this year for books, equipment and new library space. Libraries are crucial and they, too, need more books and new equipment to carry them forward into the new era. It is time to turn up the lamps of learning.
What has all this to do with the job prospects of the teenager in Tredegar? The answer is, more than one might think. Getting the Welsh economy up to the speed of the new technology will raise the income level of the whole community. It will produce a host of new opportunities extending well beyond software and telephony. The cable investment entails excavating roads, making the cable and


designing and manufacturing the switches and boosters. The system, once installed, needs maintaining and using: a host of businesses are growing and will grow on its foundations.
It should be as easy to entice the schoolboy in Mountain Ash as the schoolboy in Cardiff to make the journey from Nintendo and Gameboy to personal computer and multi-media link. A software generation is now growing up around the world comprising children who are used to writing essays on word processors and solving problems on computers. If English or Welsh is their first language, BASIC is their second. They have an entrée waiting to the world of technology. The Internet scarcely recognises political borders or language barriers.
Ideas flash through the cable, cross the continents and are intolerant of Government control. The information revolution moves at the speed of light. No Government can "invest" in it with an eye to controlling it—that would be like trying to bet on the results of last Saturday's 3.40 at Chepstow when it is already Tuesday afternoon. The shadow Chancellor on the Internet would do to multi-media what successive British Governments did to British Leyland and British Steel in the 1960s and 1970s.

Mr. Donald Anderson: What the Secretary of State is telling the House is of great interest, but will he put himself in the position of an unemployed man in Cwmrhydyceirw or an unmarried mother in St. Mellons and ask how relevant what he is saying is to their needs?

Mr. Redwood: That, in a slightly different form, was the question that I was asked a little while ago, and which I am now answering. It is very relevant because the scheme will increase prosperity and job opportunities across Wales—in the valleys, north Wales, mid-Wales and west Wales. Many Opposition Members accept that it is a job generator in its own right and that it will serve to raise the incomes of the country. The hon. Gentleman must understand that, as incomes rise, people spend more on goods and services which, in turn, generates new jobs.
Across the Atlantic, Congress has stepped out on a legislative revolution. The Republicans have realised that in this fast-moving technological world, less rather than more government is what is needed. What people are looking for is leadership rather than the self-serving interests of politicians. More should be expected of individuals and families, and politicians should interfere less and be true to their word. The information revolution demands bright, articulate self-motivated people. Their demands of Government are different from those of 1950s factory workers.
The same process of change brings many more lower-paid jobs in services, requiring the remodelling of welfare to encourage rather than impede work for the young and the part-timer. These jobs can and do lead to better-paid opportunities and should not be run down, as they regularly are by the Opposition. A sense of community, of family and of neighbourhood does not require more government to give it voice or substance; it has a value of its own, fashioned by history and quietly rejoicing in its independence.
British Conservatives should take heart from the American revival of conservative beliefs because American fashions in politics are often followed a year or

two later in Britain. The short-lived liberal reaction was seized on by Labour as an augury for its future success. It now looks like an invitation to a wake before the baby was even born on our side of the Atlantic. Americans are discovering that liberal theory does not make for good government. America may be out to reinvent government, but so far there is a failure to reinvent enthusiasm for heavy-handed state control of the old kind.
The Leader of the Opposition is a figure from the past, not the shape of things to come. He is an invitee to the 1960s bring-a-bottle caucus, trying out long trousers over his party's student politics of grievance, grudge and gesture. Already he has disrupted the "happening" with his sartorial approach and caused quite a few hangovers, as I believe the party for Welsh Members did last night.
The traditional revellers' dismay at the changes—the end of clause IV, the acceptance of choice in education and the clumsy ideas about devolution—is ripping the heart out of the customary Labour celebrations. Moss is gathering on the Leader of the Opposition's rolling stones. That, I think, dates him precisely. To a socialist, putting a gag on redistribution or a brake on public ownership is like Christmas without a tree or a present. I sympathise—if I were a socialist, I should be equally disappointed.
What is the point of being a socialist if one does not want to soak the rich and take over the big industries? Labour's dilemma is that it knows where the party's soul lies and it knows that it is against the spirit of the age. It may not be possible to rebuild the mental Berlin wall that kept socialism in.
Lower taxes and curbs on the excessive—

Mr. Rogers: rose—

Mr. Redwood: I am enjoying myself. I shall give way in a moment.
Lower taxes and curbs on the excessive cost of running big government are just what is needed.

Mr. Hanson: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not very often raise points of order, but I wonder whether the Secretary of State intends to talk about Welsh affairs, given that this is a Welsh affairs debate. Perhaps you could remind him of that and suggest that he stop talking about the Labour party.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Geoffrey Lofthouse): That is not a point of order for me.

Mr. Redwood: I shall regard the hon. Gentleman's point of order as an unwanted intervention and say only that I thought that the Leader of the Opposition wanted to be the Prime Minister of Wales as well as of England. If so, his views are of considerable interest to the Welsh people.

Mr. Rogers: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Mr. Redwood: As I have been interrupted, I shall do so.

Mr. Rogers: We were also enjoying the Secretary of State's speech, especially those of us who enjoy a good comic. Does he accept that the Government have created enormous differentials in wealth and that there should be some redistribution? For example, people such as the chairman of Welsh Water are paid £500,000 while some old-age pensioners in my constituency who live in


one-bedroomed flats have to pay £230 a year for their water. Does he not think that there should be some equalisation of wealth?

Mr. Redwood: Of course I want everyone to participate in the growing wealth of the country: that is what Conservative policy is about. I also agree that monopoly utilities need strong price regulation. They should not be able to fleece people, so it is important for them to be strongly regulated unless and until they become fully competitive. The market will then set more sensible prices.
Mr. Gingrich has begun by pruning congressional committees and staff numbers, leading by example. It is a good beginning—and it is a warning to the Labour party, which is already waist-high in promises of more Ministries, quangos, Parliaments and assemblies. Labour in Wales signs up to those promises, then tries to plead ignorance or protest innocence when asked about them.
I will try once more. Will the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) tell us in his speech whether, in his ideal Labour world, Wales would or would not acquire a regional development bank,
Local structures to assist innovation and transfer of technology
and
Locally based and local responsive Agencies to work with Local Authorities to help match needs with resources, to tackle skills shortages, to link capital with opportunities"?
Those are the Labour party's words; I would not dream of writing like that.
Would Wales be given a network of small and medium-scale dance houses, a community education forum, a project task force for joint public and private investment, a national investment bank, an "investment in industry" unit, Faraday centres, a defence diversification agency and a business development bank? I see some flickerings of recognition on the face of the hon. Member for Caerphilly at last.

Mr. Ron Davies: The Secretary of State has done it before.

Mr. Redwood: Yes, I have done it before; but I did not receive an answer last time. I live in hope.
Would Wales be given a business development hank for small business, a cultural education commission, a network of law centres, a transport authority, an environment audit committee, an environment ombudsman and a general teaching council? I could go on for another hour or so, but I will spare the House the rest of the list. We should pity the poor people who would have not only to pay for that lot, but to obey all their rules.
The hon. Member for Caerphilly has completely lost his way. Like a latter day Don Quixote, he tilts at imaginary policy windmills. In his latest joust in The House Magazine, he attacks me for wanting to privatise Snowdonia—a policy as credible as the assertion that the moon is made of green cheese. [Interruption.] Perhaps the hon. Gentleman thinks that the moon is made of green cheese. I can reassure him: men have landed there and ascertained that it is not.
The hon. Gentleman condemns me for appointing more administrators and managers in the health service when I have introduced strong controls, resulting so far in a reduction of 172 in such posts in Welsh health authorities. He claims that I am busy transferring powers to quangos;

yet he resists practically every proposal that I come up with to switch powers and tasks from quangos to elected local government in Wales. He must explain that to Welsh local government—but, given the standards of Labour local government in Birmingham and Avon, I understand his reluctance to do so.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: None of this is about Wales.

Mr. Redwood: It is all about Wales. All the references to the bodies that I have listed, which are in Labour's policy documents, presumably apply to Wales; but the hon. Gentleman cannot see the connection.
The central ambition of Welsh policy must be to make government work better for the public whom it serves. Governments should show some humility about their own capability in comparison with the actions of families, individuals and the markets. Markets often like to keep Governments guessing, but that does not make them dispensable or anti-social. The origins of many Welsh communities lie in market day, and without fair exchange we would all be a good deal poorer: if I had to rely on what I grew to eat, I would have starved long ago.

Mr. Ted Rowlands: I would not.

Mr. Redwood: If we all had to make our own transport, few of us would sport even a bicycle, let alone a car. The hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) claims to be a good gardener, but I do not suppose that he has built many cars in his back garden.

Mr. Dafydd Wigley: The Secretary of State speaks of the importance of markets. Will he consider the problem facing Welsh sheep farmers, who will be unable to deliver their sheep to the markets that they have at present if some of the difficulties of recent weeks persist? What are the Government, and the Welsh Office in particular, doing to try to achieve a rapprochement that would make those markets available again?

Mr. Redwood: We shall do all in our power to ensure that fair trade is possible. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food has done a great deal in that regard, as the hon. Gentleman well knows.
Not all discipline in a society can or should come from Government. I believe in true devolution: in a Wales where free institutions—the family, churches, companies—can and should also be sources of strength and moral consideration. We do not want all leadership to come from politicians, and we do not want so much of life to be politicised. In that regard, we speak for many Welsh people. The latest poll shows that the majority do not want an assembly.
We certainly do not want Cardiff and London to be mere lobby towns, where the politically correct mingle with the glitterati and the hired hands. Lobbyists and spin doctors deserve each other; the politically correct obey the lobbyist, while the politically astute obey the people. The politician who mistakes the popular will for the sectional interest is either a knave or a fool.

Mr. Elfyn Llwyd: Which opinion poll does the Secretary of State mean? Anyone who knows anything about Wales is aware that the reverse


is the case. The right hon. Gentleman is misleading the House. The result of the last opinion poll showed 49 per cent. in favour of an assembly, 25 against and the rest undecided. That is a far cry from the right hon. Gentleman's assertion. Perhaps he would like to tell the House the truth.

Mr. Redwood: If we add those who do not know to those who do not want the assembly, we find that they constitute a clear majority. If the assembly were so popular, people would not say that they did not know; they would say that they wanted it. It is Opposition Members who are abusing the figures, because they are extremely disappointed with them.
Recently, Labour in Wales has tried to argue that, far from providing more income for all, the 1980s and 1990s have been good news for the rich and bad news for the poor. Labour Members did not read their Rowntree report carefully enough: as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security has pointed out, it showed that among the bottom 10 per cent. in the United Kingdom are 750,000 people who are declaring zero or negative incomes. They include many accountants, taxi drivers and builders, and a much larger number of students—people whose incomes are currently low to prepare them for much more highly paid jobs when they finish their studies and make progress with their careers.

Mr. Paul Flynn: In his analysis of that opinion poll, the Secretary of State counted the "don't knows" and the "don't wants" as a single group. Less than 50 per cent. of the electorate voted in Islwyn. Why has the Secretary of State not claimed that 3.9 per cent., plus those who did not vote, represents a majority? Why has he not complained about the fact that the Conservatives were not elected?

Mr. Redwood: It is tempting to go along with that argument, but I see the fallacy in it. It is very different from the argument that I put. I merely stated that the latest opinion poll did not show that the majority wanted an assembly; that is clearly the position.
The picture is not of two immovable nations, but of change and flux. In a recession, some entrepreneurs hit hard times; some students live on low incomes before doing well for themselves; some families, tragically, lose one or two jobs, only to recover at a later date. Some areas of Wales contain pockets of obstinately high unemployment, where too many families have no job for too long. We should recognise, however, that long-term unemployment is down by 49 per cent. from its peak. Like Opposition Members, I want it to fall much further during the current recovery.
The best way out of poverty is through a job, and the best way to a better job is from another job. Regeneration policies are designed to increase the chances of employment for people in the affected areas. I have asked councils to show passion for the business of regeneration. I do not accept that democratic institutions in Wales that are spending £3.3 billion next year are bereft of discretion or the ability to do good. Listening to what is said by some council leaders, one would think that I was giving them less money next year—not £110 million more, if revenue and capital are taken together, which is what Parliament voted. Moreover, I have certainly not been telling them how all that money should be spent.
Following strong representations to me from the owners of Cardiff airport, the Government are considering whether a new relaxation of the capital receipts rules is possible. We shall make a statement shortly, which I am sure will interest the House.
Parliament sends local government money, and gives it freedom in the choice of its priorities. The debate in recent weeks has been about the priorities that some councils have chosen. I am glad to note that some Welsh counties are now finding the necessary money, and reassuring people that teachers will not be sacked. The money is there, and that is how we want them to spend it.
Strong, confident local government would move on from moaning about the settlement, once it is agreed, to being positive about what can be done with the cash. Within the totals, I expect local government to set out its plans for energising tired communities and repairing rundown places. The Welsh Office and its agencies are there to help. If a council has an ambitious plan which it requires more cash to implement, Welsh Office and WDA money is available to assist.
I am looking for bolder schemes than many on offer. I want the strategic development scheme to back vision; to back a cluster of projects that will make a real difference in an area.

Mr. Cynog Dafis: The Secretary of State has been talking about local authorities and some of the increased powers that have been given to them. He must have in mind the mid-Wales development grant. When will he insist that the anomaly of the Lampeter-Aberaeron tunnel travel-to-work area being excluded from the mid-Wales development grant will end? I understand that it requires the Secretary of State's advocacy to the Commission of the European Union. Will he undertake to ensure that that absurd anomaly ends as soon as possible?

Mr. Redwood: I will look into that point and let the hon. Gentleman know when I have investigated it further.
I am also prepared to transfer responsibility for smaller schemes to local authorities as the Council of Welsh Districts has requested. I shall be having further discussions with it on that matter.
The economy is roaring ahead—it is time to harness its energy. The boldest scheme under way is in Cardiff bay. Today I am granting an additional £1.7 million in the current year to the corporation for Bute avenue preparations. Swansea Vale is painting on a broad canvas. In Llanelli, there is a very comprehensive development scheme.
In too many places there is a reluctance to build enough of the types of housing that people want to buy and a caution about encouraging young people to reach for the stars. Many of the new jobs will come from small companies and local enterprise. One cannot rebuild a community entirely from the outside. One cannot bake a good Welsh cake on foreign investment and Government subsidy alone.
The 1960s were not kind to Llanelli. One of the best rugby teams in Wales could not arrest the decline. Steel mills were abandoned, tin plate plants were left open to the elements, there were bare ruined works and mile after mile of coal-stained mud—750 derelict acres behind a polluted coastline where heavy industry once hammered out a living. Today, in place of that, there are 166 new


homes with many more to come, acres of new grass and even a host of golden daffodils. Llanelli is creating a new town in the landscape of Sandy Water park and in the new shops of the town centre. How I welcome that, as, I trust, do Opposition Members.
At the other end of Wales another town by the sea, Holyhead, is welcoming new horizons and is showing how regeneration can happen where there is a will and a way. In the autumn, Stena Sealink announced plans to invest £120 million in its Holyhead service, with a new high-speed service and a £35 million redevelopment of Holyhead port. In February, Irish Ferries announced a new £46 million super-ferry service for its Holyhead to Dublin service, which will double freight output by the end of 1996. In Holyhead, 100 additional jobs are predicted to be created by the end of the century as a result of that investment and I trust that much more will follow.
Cardiff, a city of arcades and architectural magnificence, is building for the 21st century. Walking from Cathay's park to Queen's street takes one past building sites and new developments. The Queen's arcade, the Prudential building and new offices which are rising from an empty lot are all to be seen in the centre of the city. In the bay, the barrage is emerging from the drawing board, Penarth village is growing and the Ely Field, Windsor Quay and Ferryside developments are set to add 1,500 new homes. In the east at Pontprennau, a business park and 1,600 homes are in development. They are capital projects for a leading city.
The Penrhys housing estate is home to more than 2,000 people, but too many are unemployed. By 1986, when John and Nora Morgans came to the estate, it was renowned as having some of the worst social problems in Wales. Since then, with their leadership, the community has built a café, a creche, a launderette and a new church. The Penrhys project has renovated and transformed the centre of the estate, bringing a new village street with health facilities, a chemist and a food co-operative. Graffiti and vandalism have disappeared from the central area and local residents have taken responsibility for ensuring that it is better looked after. It now needs better education and training, to build on the homework club and to work closely with the schools to give youngsters new opportunities to break out of the dead end and into jobs and training. That is what I want to see and I believe that Opposition Members want that as well.
I have spent a great deal of my time since becoming a Member of Parliament working on how less prosperous places can catch the habit of success already imbibed by the more prosperous.

Mr. Rowlands: I am not certain how much of his speech the Secretary of State has left—I am just checking. [HON. MEMBERS: "Not much."] In that case, will he make a statement, fundamental to his whole argument, about the training for work programme in the next financial year? Is he aware that the word is going out that there will be a reduction in, if not elimination of, all bursaries for the manufacturing training programme? Will he make a statement, so we at least know where we stand, on what sort of vision he has for training and skilling our young people?

Mr. Redwood: We are encouraging many new initiatives in training, which will be even better than the training for work programme. The engineering

apprenticeship scheme, which I have talked about in meetings of the Welsh Grand Committee and elsewhere, will be central to our ambitions for better training in Wales. This year, we have been spending a great deal of money on ensuring that manufacturing equipment is available in the colleges and other institutes, so that the young people can be well trained. That, of course, is a vital part of the process. As the hon. Gentleman knows, I came to his constituency to encourage the work going on there in a very fine, newly equipped centre. I trust that that centre will lead to many well-trained young people being available for, and finding, much better jobs.
From the time that, as a Back Bencher, I went with a camera crew to the Hulme estate in Manchester to denounce it, to the time that I awarded a cheque to pay for its demolition on behalf of the Government, and from my first visit to Cardiff bay to see the scope, to my present job supervising the progress, I have worried away to find out what works well and what does not work. There is the task of physical regeneration, clearing derelict sites, building new homes and modernising factories and offices, but there is a parallel, central task of giving the community confidence in itself and passing on to people belief in themselves and their town. It is often better to employ someone who wants to learn but lacks knowledge than to employ someone who has knowledge and no will to work. It is clearly fatal to employ someone who lacks both skill and a sense of purpose.
When the mainspring of a community goes, it takes some effort to replace it. It cannot all be done from outside. Restore the council homes without restoring pride and they will soon go downhill again. Build the factories without building a will to work and the workers will come from elsewhere. Hope is an essential commodity. It is easily destroyed or driven out and less easily brought back. If a community loses its driving force, it is difficult to recover. Bright children decide to leave as soon as they can to make their fortune elsewhere. Whole families may have to live on benefit, as the entrepreneurs leave or bypass the place. Incomes fail or stay low, leaving insufficient to maintain the fabric or encourage new business. In some inner cities, those with any business nous who remain are tempted into the black economy to continue enjoying the benefits. The community may even fall prey to loan sharks, drug dealers and others, who can turn a difficult case into a hopeless one.
The problems of deprivation in the valleys are not as hopeless as some inner-city problems around the world. As we intrude new cash and new ideas, we must ensure that it rekindles enthusiasm in the valleys. It is no good at all if building workers come in from outside and the graduate jobs go to people from England.
The spring has to be replaced with one of Welsh steel. Sometimes there will be a Government answer to the problem; sometimes the answer has to come from local people. Those who think that the only answer is money are wrong. I have always accepted that money is part of the answer. If only money were the only answer, it would all be so easy to solve. Money alone cannot recoil the spring and create the determination to succeed and the dynamism that is needed.

Mr. Nick Ainger: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way, particularly on that point. He is aware, following his press release yesterday, that there is a distinct possibility of up to 200 jobs being lost at the Pendine defence establishment. He said in his


statement that he is considering extending the West Wales task force. Will he give me and my hon. Friend the Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) an assurance that if that West Wales task force is to be extended to include the west Carmarthen area, there will be additional finance?

Mr. Redwood: I am very happy for it to be extended, but I wanted to consult further with local interests before being categoric about it. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for saying that that is the wish. I am, of course, very happy to discuss further projects and whether we can help financially with them, as I accept that we may need to do so. I would, however, like to see the projects or the outline of the scheme first before giving a categoric assurance.
There is no substitute for leadership—the leadership of an inspired teacher at school, of the careers adviser, of the intrepid entrepreneur, of the councillor with a conviction of success.
Wales was fortunately spared the worst of the horrors of barbaric architecture. However, the fashion penetrated to Montgomeryshire where the Oldford estate stood as an intrusion of slab architecture and slab mentality. Regimented blocks with deck access on the fringe of Welshpool jarred with the people and the landscape. The mistakes of the 1960s have now been pulled down and new houses, roads, off-street parking and individual gardens have been created. That is what the tenants wanted. They were consulted extensively about the changes—a far cry from the "we know what is best for you" days when the estate was constructed. A problem estate has been restored with some pride and hope.

Mr. Jon Owen Jones: On "we know what is best for you" and barbaric architecture, has the Secretary of State any comments to make on the trust's decision about the opera house in Cardiff?

Mr. Redwood: The only lines that I have to remember on this occasion are that I have no intention of using Welsh Office money to pay for the project because that would be a necessary condition for it to attract millennium funding. That being so, it would be quite wrong for me to have a public view as to whether I liked the building or not.
I do not want anyone to be roofless in Wales. In Cardiff I have supported contacting people sleeping rough and offering accommodation to them. I want Swansea, Newport and anywhere else with people sleeping out to come forward with proposals to banish the problem. Of course money will be available to help. We must ensure that no one need sleep rough.
Saint David said, "Be joyful, keep your faith, do the little things." There is much to celebrate already including Welsh success in industry, education and culture. There is a need to keep faith and to believe in Welsh virtues and Welsh talents. There is a need for many to recognise that there is a shared responsibility for the little things that need doing.

Mr. Llwyd: The Secretary of State is building up to his usual crescendo of shouting and of "winning for Wales". We have heard it all before. However, why has he not mentioned Meirionnydd Nant Conwy? We have a

big problem. The right hon. Gentleman has been all around Wales geographically, but he has not mentioned my constituency. Is that because there is nothing good to report?

Mr. Redwood: No, but I assume that the hon. Gentleman will represent his own constituency, as he has done in interventions.
When Henry Tudor pressed on from Pembroke to London, he had a kingdom to win. His dynasty showed that Wales and England united are far greater than the sum of the parts—[Interruption.] I knew that the nationalists would like this particular peroration.
Henry reformed the nation's finances and paved the way for the nation's glory. Elizabethan translations of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer gave the language and literature of Wales a new foundation. The dragon and the lion united went on to create a thriving, successful country that lived by its ships, its wits and its manufactures. The prophecies of the bards were fulfilled. Wales today is winning in the same way.

Mr. Ron Davies: I am glad that the Secretary of State enjoyed his speech. We have been entertained by quite a bizarre performance from him. He is obviously more concerned to talk about the Labour party than about his own record of stewardship of the Welsh Office. That is a cause of great disappointment.
In reply to the substance of the Secretary of State's remarks, I want to make two points. First, I welcome, as I am sure all hon. Members do, his comments on cabling. We shall support any initiative that he takes to encourage investment in information technology. Secondly, I am more than happy to debate Labour's plans for Wales at any time and anywhere in Wales.
It is a source of disappointment to me that whenever the Secretary of State has an opportunity to debate our policies, and the Opposition's policies generally in Wales, he turns that opportunity down, as he did last week when he refused to take part in the BBC's "State of the Nation" debate. If it is good enough for representatives of the Labour party, the Liberal party and Plaid Cymru to face the people of Wales to account for their policies, it is a pity that the Secretary of State does not deem it appropriate or good enough for him to account for his policies.
I am sorry that the Secretary of State did not have the courtesy to extend a welcome to the new hon. Member for Islwyn. I understand that my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) will attempt to catch your eye later, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and I very much look forward to hearing from him.
It was uncharacteristically churlish of the Secretary of State not to refer to our colleague Neil Kinnock, the former right hon. Member for Islwyn. This is the first time that we have debated Welsh affairs since Neil Kinnock ceased to be the Member for Islwyn and I want to place on record the affection and appreciation of my right hon. and hon. Friends for his work. He is now a European Commissioner and I am sure that he will perform that task with great distinction.
Neil Kinnock represented Islwyn for 25 years and he had the distinction of being the leader of the Labour party. It is right that, during this St. David's day debate and at


the first opportunity since he ceased to represent Islwyn, we should place on record our thanks for his contribution to Welsh public life and our heartfelt good wishes to him in his new role.

Mr. Redwood: Of course, I am very happy to welcome the new hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig). Of course, I associate the Conservative party with the Labour party in placing on record our thanks to the former right hon. Member for Islwyn for his public service and the wish for a successful tenure in his new role on behalf of all of us in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Davies: That is very gracious of the Secretary of State, and I accept his comments in the genuine spirit in which they were offered.
I am sure that the Secretary of State does not want to talk about the Islwyn by-election, because it represented a fairly dramatic low point in the fortunes of the Conservative party, in what can only be described as another dismal year for the Conservative party and for the Secretary of State. Despite the Secretary of State's characteristic bluster, the promised upturn in the economy has not materialised. People in Wales are poorer as inflation is now outstripping pay increases and tax increases are biting ever deeper.
Public services are failing to deliver the quality and extent of provision required of them as funding is cut and the Secretary of State's reforms fail to work. Our democracy is in a shambles. Social divisions are deeper as the super-rich become ultra rich at the expense of the poor and successive Tory privatisations show that all too clearly.
Personal insecurity has never been higher, with negative equity, fear of crime and economic insecurity blighting the lives of hundreds of thousands of our citizens. Presiding over all that is a party whose members, Government and Cabinet are split from top to bottom, and a Secretary of State for Wales who is barely in touch with reality.
In the foreword to "Views from Wales", a collection of the Secretary of State's speeches published last year, he claims that "the Welsh liked him". He wrote that his brand of Conservatism struck a chord
way beyond the confines of the Conservative Party in Wales.
It must be said that quite a lot is beyond the confines of the Conservative party in Wales. The people of Wales demonstrated in a very funny way their affection for the Secretary of State in the Islwyn by-election on 16 February.
In that by-election, the Conservative party candidate received precisely 3.9 per cent. of the vote. Fewer than one elector in 50 supported the Government and the Conservative party. It was the Conservative party's worst parliamentary election result in Wales since it took only 1.1 per cent. in the Pontypridd constituency in 1918.
At Islwyn, the Conservative party was barely in fourth place. If Screaming Lord Sutch had polled 404 more votes, the Conservatives would have been fifth. They would have been sandwiched between the Monster Raving Loony party and the UK Independence party. It is tempting to speculate that those Tories with Welsh interests could well slip quite effortlessly from one fringe party to the other. However, to be fair to the Secretary of State, he would probably take the hon. Member for Vale

of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney) with him down into the UK Independence party rather than up into the more successful loony party.
The Secretary of State's brand of Conservatism has not struck much of a chord, either, with senior Welsh Tories. One of them, the prominent Cardiff Tory and former adviser to the Prime Minister, Marc Cranfield Adams, actually left the party because of the distinctive contribution of the Secretary of State for Wales. On leaving the party, he said:
When you see people following a system where the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, if you care you want to do something about it. The reason why I am quitting is because I care. Passionately.
It is not only the electors and his own party members with whom the right hon. Gentleman has fallen out during the past 12 months. He has fallen out with the Secretary of State for Health over his short-lived "health initiative". Our very own Secretary of State decided that he had had enough of the men in grey suits running the health service, and he was going to do something about it. It took a very well-publicised rap over the knuckles from members of the Cabinet to remind him that it was their and his own policies that he was attacking. It is their reforms that have seen the number of health administrators rise from 187 to more than 1,000 in only four years.
The right hon. Gentleman has fallen out with the Secretary of State for the Environment over his refusal to issue planning policy guidance on transport, noise and pollution control, and his deliberate attempt to wreck the Government's commitment to the Rio declaration and European directives on flora and fauna habitat. The Independent on Sunday of 29 January quoted Whitehall officials saying that the Secretary of State for Wales was "declaring UDI" by refusing to involve the Principality in a national attempt to reduce fire deaths.
The right hon. Gentleman has fallen out with the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food for his refusal to join in the preparation of the rural White Paper, and he has offended the farming unions in the process. He has fallen out with the Secretary of State for Education on the funding of teachers' pay. For good measure, a couple of weeks ago, he showed his own lack of grasp by criticising schools that held balances, when those balances were held in accordance with the advice of his own Government.
The President of the Board of Trade forced the right hon. Gentleman to rewrite his speech on regional aid when the Western Mail of 11 September last year reported him as describing Wales as
Keynes by the Sea, dishing out candy floss grants to everyone.
Of course, he was developing his perverse theory of "reverse Darwinism" to justify his personalised campaign against regional policy. It is small wonder that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was forced to describe him as
a mad professor in his laboratory
when he attempted to rewrite the Government's budgetary policy.
"Batty", "hypocritical", "inaccurate" and "lacking in political judgment" are words that have been used by the right hon. Gentleman's parliamentary colleagues to describe him this year. It is only 2 March. I suspect that we shall have a very rich crop of adjectives as the season progresses.
Unemployment is the biggest single problem that we have in Wales. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams) pointed out in his intervention, we are still 160,000 jobs down on when Labour left office, and 58 per cent. of respondents to yesterday's Western Mail poll identified that as Wales' No. 1 problem. The Secretary of State's response, having seen the damage done by his own Government's destructive policies, has characteristically been to decide that more of the same is necessary.
Investment in infrastructure is down. Regional aid has been cut by 50 per cent. Training and enterprise council budgets have been cut by 7.5 per cent. This week's announcement of the details of the forced asset stripping of the Welsh Development Agency makes it abundantly clear that the public sector or public-private partnerships have no secure long-term future in the right hon. Gentleman's long-term ideological plans.
The Secretary of State will not find a single supporter in major Welsh companies for his free market, anti-European attitudes. He does not even realise the political folly of a Conservative Secretary of State for Wales falling out with his few remaining allies. Even the Confederation of British Industry in Wales has now said, "Enough is enough." It is small wonder that the Conservative party faces an electoral wipe-out as soon as it is forced to face the people.

Mr. Donald Anderson: At the risk of stealing my hon. Friend's bull point in his litany of vituperation from the Secretary of State's Cabinet colleagues and others, does he recall that the Prime Minister even went so far as to doubt the paternity of the Secretary of State?

Mr. Davies: I am far too sensitive a soul to refer to that episode.
The Secretary of State's whole strategy has been based on a publicity offensive to convince Welsh electors that we are experiencing an economic success and to convince his potential Tory allies in England that he is bringing about a social revolution. That is precisely why he has failed us in Wales. He does not have his eyes on Wales. He has one eye on his place in the Cabinet and the other on the leadership of his party. His aspirations for social revolution would be risible if they did not offend so deeply our own standards, values and aspirations in Wales. The facts deny any claim that the right hon. Gentleman has to economic success.
Whatever he argues about employment figures or growth rates, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the serious, most objective test of the success or otherwise of Welsh Office policies is the extent to which Welsh GDP, expressed as a percentage of British GDP, has grown? Does he accept that that is the best objective test? I am asking the Secretary of State a direct question. He does not accept that the best objective way to assess the success of the Welsh Office is by comparing the success of the Welsh economy, measured in terms of GDP, at the start of the Conservatives' term of office, with the current position. That seems to be the best, honest, most objective test. I can understand why the Secretary of State does not want to accept it.
We now have figures relating to 14 years of Conservative Government since 1979. In 11 of those 14 years, Welsh GDP was lower, as a percentage of United

Kingdom GDP, than it was during the last year of the previous Labour Government in 1979. The latest figure shows a further fall of 1.4 per cent., so we are still worse off now in relative terms than we were in 1979. I can understand the Secretary of State's reticence to accept the basis of that argument, but it is odd, is it not, that he is always prepared to take credit when anything goes right. That does not happen very often, but when it does, he is anxious to take the credit.
There is another great paradox. The Secretary of State is a great devolutionist. He wants policies made in Wales. He is quite happy to develop a distinctive agenda for health, local government or education, but it must be his own agenda. He is quite happy with devolution, provided that it allows him to practise his own maverick right-wing views. Somehow, we are supposed to place the state of the Union in great peril if those self-same decisions that he now takes in secrecy are taken openly and publicly by the elected, accountable representatives of the people whom those decisions affect. The Secretary of State still has to explain why an assembly in Northern Ireland will help to secure the future of the Union, whereas a similar proposal for Wales will endanger that same Union.
No doubt, the Secretary of State will argue that he is answerable to Parliament.

Mr. Redwood: indicated assent.

Mr. Davies: It is true. I am glad that we have a basis for agreement. However, I wish to examine what happens in practice.

Mr. Llwyd: The hon. Gentleman might be interested in a reply that I recently received from the Secretary of State, after I asked him how often he had been to the Council of Ministers on behalf of Wales since he had been in post. The answer is, not once. The second paragraph of his letter stated, "But when I was Minister for the DTI, I went there very often." That is an insult to the people of Wales.

Mr. Davies: The hon. Gentleman makes his point very cogently.
I shall examine the Secretary of State's argument that he is answerable to Parliament, because that is his defence of the policies that he operates. Last year, on legal advice, he was forced to accept, against his own previously stated wishes and instincts, the recommendation of the Countryside Council for Wales on the future of eight acres of land at Mostyn docks on the Dee estuary. In order to exact his revenge for that defeat, he decided to cut the budget of the CCW by more than 16 per cent.—more than £3 million—and required it to obey a series of detailed prescriptions. He did not even consult his own quango, let alone other conservation organisations in Wales. Undoubtedly, they would have told him how deeply damaging his ideas were. That was devolution in action, albeit over a decision that never would have been taken in a democratic framework.

Mr. Redwood: Devolution in action is what would happen if the hon. Gentleman and Welsh local government wanted some of the functions that they could carry out transferred to them from the Countryside Council for Wales, which is the kind of body that he


normally criticises. Why will he not support me in the true devolution that was the purpose of my plans for the CCW?

Mr. Davies: Because devolution as currently practised, and as it has been practised since the Welsh Office was created by a Labour Government, has involved a policy of successively devolving matters from central Government Departments to the Welsh Office. The Secretary of State chooses to use the powers devolved to him by virtue of his office. For example, he chose unilaterally to distribute the budget for the coming financial year for Wales—almost £7 billion in public expenditure—without reference to the people of Wales—

Mr. Redwood: Rubbish.

Mr. Davies: It is not rubbish. The Secretary of State does not stand for election in Wales and he does not listen to the majority of the elected representatives of the people of Wales, to Welsh conservation organisations, to Welsh local government or to Welsh industry. I doubt if he even listens to his Welsh Back Benchers. He can claim no mandate in such matters.

Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman should withdraw that remark. Of course I listen to Welsh public opinion all the time. I meet all the bodies that he has mentioned on a regular basis and I spend a lot of time travelling around Wales finding out people's opinions. I also listen to Opposition Members and Conservative Members who represent their constituency interests. That is the basis of the policies that I put before the House, in a democratic process approved by the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

Mr. Davies: I am glad that the Secretary of State has said that he is prepared to listen to the views of the people of Wales, because the people of Wales spoke yesterday in the Western Mail poll: only 12 per cent. of them were satisfied with his conduct of government. If he pays attention to the results of that poll, on the basis of his own statistical arguments, why does he not resign and give the people of this country a chance to get rid of him and his crew?
The only defence that the Secretary of State has offered for the form of devolution that he practises is the notion that he is answerable to Parliament. But let us look at what happens in practice. On 14 December 1994, I asked him in the House about his intentions towards the CCW. He refused to answer. He did not even avoid the question; he simply refused to answer it. On 30 January in the Welsh Grand Committee that met in Cardiff, specifically charged with considering Welsh public expenditure, the Secretary of State was again asked that question directly. He specifically refused to give any information whatever, let alone to debate or to try to justify his actions.
The right hon. Gentleman has been asked the question 16 times since he took his decision. Sixteen parliamentary questions have been tabled asking him about the consequences of and the justification for that decision, and 16 times he has avoided answering for the consequences of his actions. The Secretary of State cannot maintain that he is answerable to those elected to the House of Commons to represent the people of Wales.
The decision that the Secretary of State took was a horrendous gaffe, which led to justified public outrage. If he really listens to the people who express views to him,

I refer him to a report in The Independent on Sunday on 19 February—[Interruption.] It is interesting, and I hope that the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, who is supposed to have some responsibility for such matters at the Welsh Office, will listen carefully.
The article said:
In an unprecedented move, the leaders of 22 top environment, heritage and scientific bodies, representing a combined membership of 4 million people, have written a joint letter to Mr. Major warning him that his Cabinet colleague's policies threaten to cause breaches of the law.
This follows exclusive reports in the Independent on Sunday last month that cuts imposed by the Welsh Secretary were causing severe reductions in protection for wildlife and habitats …
The signatories of the letter"—
those are the people whom the Under-Secretary wishes to laugh at—
include Sir Angus Stirling, director general of the National Trust and chairman of the Royal Opera House, Peter Melchett, the executive director of Greenpeace, Barbara Young, chief executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Richard Mon-is, director of the Council for British Archaeology, Dr. Franklyn Perring, president of the Botanical Society of the British Isles, and Colin Logan, chief executive of the Youth Hostels Association.
They attack both Mr. Redwood's decision to slash the budget of … the Countryside Council for Wales—which has successfully opposed him over several major schemes—and the way in which he went about it, which they say is 'undermining confidence and generating suspicion'.
Is that the action of a Secretary of State who listens to the people of Wales, when he is condemned by such a range of bodies?

Mr. Dafis: There is a connection between the letter that the hon. Gentleman has read out and the fact that the Secretary of State was recently awarded the booby prize at the green awards ceremony a fortnight ago.

Mr. Donald Anderson: Who won?

Mr. Dafis: Modesty prevents me from answering that question.
There is an even better reason for giving the Secretary of State the booby prize than what he has done to the Countryside Council for Wales. In February last year, the Prime Minister published a sustainable development strategy for the United Kingdom. The Scottish Office then announced the formation of an advisory group on sustainable development, which was a very important development, but the Secretary of State for Wales failed to announce the formation of such a body for Wales. Several times in correspondence I have asked him to do so, yet he has still failed to act. That represents a failure even to begin to tackle the enormous challenge that sustainable development will pose to Welsh society and to the Welsh economy in the future.

Mr. Davies: The hon. Gentleman is right. Although of course I take issue with the quality of the Secretary of State's decision, I am now arguing about the process whereby that decision was taken, and the fact that, having taken it, the Secretary of State is not answerable to the people whom it will affect and has not even consulted the people for whom he has statutory responsibility. That is


the case that I am making at the moment—although I understand the case that the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis) is making.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Gwilym Jones): rose—

Mr. Davies: I would rather not give way to the Minister.

Mr. Jones: rose—

Mr. Davies: In previous debates, the Under-Secretary of State has shown a casual regard for the truth, but I hope that today he will demonstrate that he is prepared to be the honourable gentleman that we call him when we use the term by which we address each other in the House.

Mr. Jones: I had not meant to bring up that aspect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, because the House well knows that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) cannot usually manage to answer my attacks, so all that he can do is accuse me of lying. That is the height of his powers of public debate. Will he be so kind as to confirm that the article in The Independent on Sunday that he quoted, which I have read too, made no mention of the ludicrous April fools day claims that that newspaper had previously made about Snowdonia being privatised? While he is doing that, will he also confirm that the Secretary of State gave increased spending power to the CCW exactly in line with what it had asked for?

Mr. Davies: On the substance of the case, the Secretary of State took two decisions that severely affected the CCW's ability to discharge its statutory responsibilities, to such an extent that the scientists—the people employed by the CCW and charged with advising the Secretary of State—are making it clear that their ability to perform their statutory legal functions is being prejudiced. That is a measure of the financial cut that the Secretary of State has imposed.
The Secretary of State also sent those people a detailed management prescription. I have a copy of that, and I have seen how the right hon. Gentleman, defying the advice given to him by his officials in the Welsh Office—they knew what damage would be done—wrote to the CCW imposing his decisions on those people and overriding their scientific judgement. That is what happened. If the Secretary of State's proposals had been carried through, there would have been a very real threat to the future ownership of our national nature reserves in Wales. That is a fact.
It so happened that enough people involved in the CCW were prepared to blow the whistle. It so happened that the representatives of 4 million people were prepared to draw the matter to public attention. It so happened that enough people were prepared to ring the Chief Whip's office and the Prime Minister's office to ask who the lunatic in Wales was who wanted to privatise Snowdonia. Only as a result of that public outcry did the Secretary of State withdraw his proposals.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North referred to the green ribbon awards for parliamentarians. It was reported earlier this week that the Secretary of State wanted to leave his mark on Wales, and he went to Dyffryn gardens to plant a giant redwood that will last for

3,000 years. I suspect that that tree will last longer than our memory of a Secretary of State who wanted to privatise Snowdonia. The right hon. Gentleman got the booby prize in the annual green ribbon awards, but I do not suppose that somebody who last year publicly fantasised about being Mr. Blobby will find being Mr. Booby too disconcerting.
It is a sad commentary on the whole process when the varied, fragile, precious and unique Welsh environment is in the hands of someone so manifestly unfit to hold that responsibility.

Mr. Redwood: The hon. Gentleman should accept that I met the whole board of the Countryside Council for Wales. I granted the CCW the amount that the board said it needed to meet its obligations, and the board members clearly stated that the CCW could meet all its statutory obligations.

Mr. Davies: Why on earth have we then had the conflict between the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary? Why did not the Secretary of State give a clear account of his actions when we debated the matter on 14 December, on the 16 parliamentary occasions since then when it was raised, or during the Welsh Grand Committee on 30 January?
I accept at face value what the Secretary of State has said this afternoon because he is an honourable man, and I know that he would not want to mislead the House. I shall seek advice from those who monitor closely the work of the CCW. If the right hon. Gentleman has been in error in assessing the impact of the budget cuts on the CCW, I hope that he in turn will recognise that, and take the necessary steps to restore those cuts to the CCW.

Mr. Redwood: indicated assent.

Mr. Davies: I see that the Secretary of State is nodding.
We have a clear picture of a Secretary of State who is isolated in Cabinet and adrift in his own party, and whose perception of Wales is far removed from reality. There is a great gulf between the aspirations of the people of Wales and the right hon. Gentleman's own self-serving political agenda.

Mr. Wigley: Is not that the nub of the problem? It is not so much that the Secretary of State is not a capable or hard-working man, but that he does not and cannot represent the balance of political will and the aspirations in Wales. Given that the Conservative party has not had a majority of the Welsh seats in 120 years, is not the impossibility for the present system to deliver democracy to Wales seen most clearly? Does not that point underpin the whole argument about why it is necessary for us to have our own democratic Parliament in Wales?

Mr. Davies: I fully endorse the view expressed by the hon. Gentleman that we make no personal criticism of the Secretary of State. [Interruption.] If the Secretary of State thinks that I am being unkind now, he should see me when I am being serious.
The case against the Secretary of State is that his ideology is alien to the ideals that we hold in Wales, and the system that allowed him to be appointed, and that holds him to be accountable, is defective. That is the case against him that I have made today. His perception of Wales is far removed from reality.
I believe that there is a growing consensus in Wales, which recognises personal choice and asserts equal opportunity. That consensus wants to build public services and nurture the concept of community. It is a consensus which recognises our identity and wishes to safeguard our heritage. It wishes to operate through a democratic and pluralistic framework. That consensus excludes the Secretary of State and his party, but it will prevail as soon as the people of Wales have a chance to vote for it.

Sir Wyn Roberts: The annual Welsh day debate on the Floor of the House is—quite properly—an occasion for state of the nation speeches, although I am somewhat surprised to find Newt Gingrich added to the Welsh pantheon quite so soon.
First, I welcome the hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) and, at the same time, bid farewell to his predecessor, Neil Kinnock, who was elected to this House in the same year as I was, in 1970. The right hon. Gentleman had a distinguished career here, rising to the leadership of his party, and we all wish him well as a Commissioner in Europe. Of one thing we can be certain: he will never forget that he is Welsh.
The debate has begun interestingly enough. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State opened with a tour d'horizon of Wales, referring to some of the favourable developments in the Welsh economy—the continuing fall in unemployment, the remarkable buoyancy of our inward investment, and so on, which were also mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister at Question Time today. There is not much doubt that if we are able to keep down inflation, the prospects for sound and sustainable economic growth in Wales will remain good. That is important to all of us in Wales, and it is even more important for us than it is for the more prosperous parts of the United Kingdom.
I fully appreciate the remarkable transformation which has taken place in the Welsh economy in the past 15 years or so. We now have a firm foundation for continuing growth, especially in modern manufacturing industry. I am aware—as are other Members—of the long way we have to go to achieve the levels of prosperity attained by certain other parts of the United Kingdom and by Europe.
I am accustomed to hearing Opposition Members highlighting statistics which show that Wales is trailing the league in one aspect of life or another, and I am as concerned as anyone about the reality behind the figures, especially those relating to comparative income levels, and I fully endorse every genuine effort to improve those matters over time. However, having listened carefully to the speeches of Opposition Members over the past few months, so far as I can see it is only the Government who have any real policies of substance to deal with the situation rather than short-term palliatives to deal with current deficiencies and inadequacies in the Welsh economy.
I greatly welcome what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had to say about the development that he foresees in information technology in Wales. I am delighted to tell the hon. and learned Member for

Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) that the Development Board for Rural Wales is one of the few prominent organisations in Wales already on the Internet system.

Mr. Alex Carlile: I share the right hon. Gentleman's welcome for the fact that the Development Board for Rural Wales is on the Internet, but we have yet to hear any policies from the Government that will help to arrest the decline in the biggest industry in rural Wales, which is agriculture, as the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) said. What advice would the right hon. Gentleman give the Government, who have produced nothing on the subject today, as to the policies that they should introduce to ensure the survival—it is now a question of survival—of the sheepmeat industry in upland Wales?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I believe that the hon. and learned Gentleman was present yesterday when we heard the chairman of the Development Board for Rural Wales talking about the prospects for rural Wales. The need for development to compensate for the decline in farming, which has been going on for a considerable time, was one of the subjects that he covered. On the present state of the sheepmeat regime and sheep farming, I am surprised that the industry is surviving as well as it is—despite the bans and obstacles to the export of sheep, which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food is doing his utmost to deal with at a European level.
The Opposition are fond of recasting existing Government policies in what I would call Sedgefield-speak and then claiming them as their own. Nevertheless, the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) did not mention Labour's attitude to the inward investment which has produced some tens of thousands of jobs for Wales. I do not think that he mentioned it at all; yet inward investment brought some 110,000 jobs to Wales between April 1983 and April 1993 and a further 10,000 between April and December 1993. I heard what the hon. Gentleman said about unemployment and I agree about the importance of that subject and the need to do everything that we possibly can to reduce it. One of the ways in which the Government have been very successful in reducing unemployment is by attracting inward investment. The question is this: why did the Labour party not commit itself to supporting the Government's inward investment policies?

Mr. Ron Davies: rose—

Sir Wyn Roberts: Before I give way to the hon. Gentleman, I have two other questions for him to answer.

Mr. Davies: On that question—

Sir Wyn Roberts: I have two more questions that the hon. Gentleman will have to answer and I intend to press him on this.
Should the Opposition come to office, will the present policy on inward investment be continued or abandoned? We are entitled to know. Secondly, the Welsh Office export promotion policy has brought millions of pounds' worth of orders to small and medium-sized Welsh businesses, enabling many of them to expand and take on more employees. What is the Labour party's policy on that? Welsh business needs to know, and so do its employees. Thirdly, I recall the Opposition, and the hon. Member for Caerphilly in particular, placing some


emphasis on the encouragement of local business formation. We heard nothing about that today. Is that policy extant or is it defunct? We are surely entitled to know.

Mr. Davies: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way at last. I wanted to focus my remarks on one aspect of Welsh affairs, which I did, but I must draw his attention to the fact that the last Labour Government started the process of inward investment and established the Welsh Development Agency, which has been so successful in bringing about many of the achievements to which he referred. The right hon. Gentleman bitterly opposed the establishment of that agency when he was in opposition under the last Labour Government.

Sir Wyn Roberts: We have still not had an assurance that the hon. Member for Caerphilly will continue the inward investment that the Government have so successfully pursued over the past 15 years.

Mr. Davies: Yes.

Sir Wyn Roberts: The hon. Gentleman tells me that the answer is yes and I am delighted to hear it. That is the first time we have had any such assurance from the Opposition.
The question of how the continued reduction in unemployment achieved by this Government is to be maintained is a key issue and it is of prime importance to the people we represent. It demands a proper answer from the Opposition and we have certainly not had one today or in any other debate that I have attended. I must warn the hon. Member for Caerphilly that there is a black hole in his economic policy. It is all very well to talk of reducing unemployment, but he must tell us how he intends to do it. It is no use simply assuming that the progress made under this Government will continue automatically, whichever party is in power. The Government's actions are supported by a raft of pragmatic policies which have evolved from experience. The people of Wales should be warned that much that they take for granted may be lost due to the lack of understanding and of a properly developed commitment to the aims of those policies on the part of the Opposition.

Mr. Llew Smith: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the progress made in employment. Will he comment on the Government-sponsored research which shows that in former coal mining areas in south Wales male adult unemployment is about 33 per cent?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I well remember 1979, when we came to office, and I know that there was a great deal of overmanning in the coal and steel industries. The elimination of overmanning and the changes in those industries are the answer to the question posed earlier by the hon. Member for Caerphilly. I have already acknowledged that we still have a long way to go to catch up with the more prosperous regions of the United Kingdom and Europe. Of course we have black spots in different parts of Wales, but there are fewer as time goes on.

Mr. Rogers: In his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith), the right hon. Gentleman missed the point. It is not a matter of reducing

manning in industry. The Government have wiped out an industry in south Wales. It is not a black spot, but a black region. The right hon. Gentleman talks about inward investment into Wales, but does he acknowledge that it was the Government's malicious policy of inward investment in coal from China, Australia and Chile which annihilated jobs in the south Wales valleys? That policy was born out of spitefulness.

Sir Wyn Roberts: I entirely disagree with that last remark, which is unworthy of the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Rogers: It is true.

Sir Wyn Roberts: I will not be drawn into an argument on the viability or otherwise of the coal mining industry. I merely remind the hon. Gentleman that more pits were closed by the Labour Government before 1979 than have been closed since.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Rod Richards): Will my right hon. Friend give way?

Sir Wyn Roberts: No, I want to make progress and change tack.
The Opposition have stated their top priority for Wales: to establish a bond of trust with the people—that is an electioneering euphemism, if ever I heard one—and establish a Welsh Assembly in their first year in office to make all the quangos more accountable. We all know what that will mean in practice. The quangos will be packed with somewhat inferior Labour placemen, as they were when the Conservative Government came into office in 1979. I well remember the state of the quangos then and how some people had to be removed from them because there was no obvious reason why they should be there, other than the fact that they were Labour party placemen. It will be a repeat of the old story: jobs for the boys. We are familiar with that in Wales. The Labour party will appoint its party faithful with a ruthlessness that would have been the envy of the old Soviet commissars. That is what "new Labour" really means.
I wonder whether the Opposition have decided where the assembly will meet. Will it be Cardiff, as per their election manifesto? I am sure that other places will lay claim to the location of the assembly, and the Opposition may have to borrow the National Eisteddfod canopy to shield the assembly until that issue has been decided. Meanwhile, we can be sure that there will be burgeoning bureaucracy and mounting costs, all to be paid for by the British taxpayer—or perhaps the Welsh taxpayer alone, as the legislation may provide.
What strikes me in listening to some of the arguments about a Welsh Assembly is that its populist appeal is pathetic in its false simplicity. Some people think that it will protect them against unpopular taxes such as a future poll tax imposed by central Government; to others, it means that they will no longer have to contribute to Trident. At times, it seems as though all the old left-wing phobias have found a new and respectable focus in the devolution issue, and that the assembly is to become the legitimate forum for the expression of their political neuroses.
The question that bothers me is this: who is to safeguard and promote the interests of Wales as a whole as the local assembly men and women squabble endlessly among themselves for bits of the cake handed down to


them annually by central Government in Whitehall? What if the cake is not so big as the appetites of those who are to share it? I doubt whether it will meet their requirements. There will certainly be no Secretary of State, as we have known holders of that office, if the powers now vested in him are vested in an assembly. So far as I can see, there will have to be a Welsh Government with a premier at its head and a string of Ministers, all answerable to the assembly. The minor parties will argue for a panel and a committee structure similar to that proposed for discussion in Northern Ireland, but I do not foresee the Labour party conceding one iota of power to the minor parties unless it has to.

Mr. Rogers: Quite right.

Sir Wyn Roberts: The hon. Gentleman confirms that I am right.

Mr. Ainger: I believe that tomorrow morning the right hon. Gentleman is to meet the president of Catalonia. As president of a region with a delegated Parliament, will Señor Pujol be told the same as the right hon. Gentleman is telling us today?

Sir Wyn Roberts: He will know the circumstances of his country as I reckon to know mine. If he asks me, however, I shall tell him certain things that I am about to tell the House. I will draw the hon. Gentleman's attention to those facts in a moment.
I have given an outline sketch of the political scenario that the Opposition have unveiled to the House in their various statements to date. The old, essentially centralist-socialist philosophy encapsulated in clause IV is about to be finally defenestrated—thrown ceremoniously out of the window—and replaced by a hitherto undefined, let alone tested, political philosophy based on social justice as propounded by the philosopher king of Sedgefield himself. If the British electorate fall for it, they will he opting for an inferno—a bonfire not of the vanities of those who fancy that Wales will do better on its own, which it will not, but of the present-day realities, which are that Wales benefits enormously from being part of the United Kingdom.
We cannot get away from those facts. One has only to compare the public expenditure figures per head in Wales with the lesser figures for England to see the extent of the support given to Wales and the still greater support given to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Those figures are available in the statistical supplement to the "Financial Statement and Budget Report 1995–96", Cm. 2821, published last month. The figures show steady growth in public expenditure per head in Wales, from £2,685 in 1989–90 to £3,913 in 1993–94. That last figure compares with £3,458 in England—£455 per head less than the sum spent in Wales. The amount spent in Scotland is even higher, at £4,185 per head, and in Northern Ireland it is £4,781.
The breakdown of that expenditure shows that it is higher in Wales than in England in a range of areas, and higher than in the English regions, too. For example, £809 per head is spent on health and personal social services in Wales, compared with £717 in England. I advise Opposition Members to study the tables in that document.

Mr. Rogers: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

Sir Wyn Roberts: No. Let me ask this key question: how long could a Welsh Assembly sustain that

comparatively high spending? How long could an assembly justify it? What guarantee can the Opposition give me and the people of Wales that the same differential between expenditure per head in Wales and expenditure in England would be maintained in the event of an assembly being established? We might well lose that favourable treatment. It will be eroded over time. That is the price that the Welsh people will have to pay for an assembly.

Mr. Alan W. Williams: I have not been impressed by what the right hon. Gentleman has had to say against the assembly. Does he accept that the economic arguments that he is making are arguments against independence, not arguments against an assembly?

Sir Wyn Roberts: If the hon. Gentleman does not think that our power here at Westminster will decline when an assembly has been established in Wales, he is gravely and grossly mistaken.

Mr. Williams: May I reply to that?

Sir Wyn Roberts: I have answered the hon. Gentleman. He can make his own speech.
I believe that the Labour party is being very short sighted in reacting as it has to the passing phenomenon of electoral support for the Scottish National party in Scotland—running at about a third of the votes cast in the European elections, I understand. The Labour party has been through its own hell, losing four elections in a row, but it is foolish to imagine that it can ride the nationalist tiger. My guess is that it will cause untold damage to the Labour party in its strongholds in the longer term, but that is a matter for right hon. and hon. Members on the Labour Benches to consider. I leave it at that.
There is a major consideration—[HON. MEMBERS: "Come on."] Yesterday, we debated a major consideration in those matters—our relationship with the European Union. Few of us would deny that Wales has been a major beneficiary economically. Most of the investment from overseas has come because we were part of the Union. In January 1994, no fewer than 343 foreign-owned manufacturing plants had been established in Wales—over 100 more than in 1983—providing about 70,000 jobs. We all appreciate the value of that investment.
The single European market has further potential for good, I believe, for us and for other member countries, and it is in our interests to realise that potential. We should assess the costs of forgoing such development as well as the political costs of further development along the lines of economic and monetary union. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister dealt with the position admirably yesterday, as did the Governor of the Bank of England when he outlined the parameters of the argument with great clarity in his recent speech in Luxembourg.
As a result of that Luxembourg speech and the Prime Minister's speech yesterday, I find the prospect of a single currency, especially the idea of a hard ecu co-existing with national currencies, possibly for a generation or longer, less daunting than before.
What is still fear-provoking is the concentration of power at a Europe-wide level that may be involved, and the lack of control of it. It is the old fear that
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.


The history of Europe tends to confirm Lord Acton's dictum, and the European Commission's strength in contrast with the European Parliament's weakness is not reassuring.
We are right to be sceptical, but we should not allow our scepticism to become septic and to poison our minds. Neither should we behave like innocents and think of Europe as a garden of Eden before the fall. We must weigh the advantages and disadvantages of further integration with the utmost care and secure the best deal for Britain. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the Government will do that.
We celebrated our patron saint yesterday, and I hope that the House will allow me a moment for an historic excursion—[HON. MEMBERS: "Half an hour."] He, too, lived in troublous times. He was renowned for his humility, and we could all do with a generous measure of that virtue. The modern nation state in Europe was far off in Dewi's time in the 6th century, and the first requirement a century or so later was a defence against the Muslim invaders of Spain, France and south-eastern Europe, who threatened Christendom with far greater force and persistence than even the Vikings, who came a little later and struck unimaginable terror along the coasts of northern Europe. So the tradition of the pax romana survived into the holy Roman empire which, with the backing of the mediaeval Church, organised the defence of Europe against the might of Islam.
The subsidence of the threat from Islam, from the 15th century onwards, was one of the preconditions for the growth of the nation state. There were many others, including the discovery of the new world. In our own times, the subsidence of the threat from the USSR may have a great deal to do with the revival of the ambition of small nations for a greater degree of self-government. Defence against external aggression is not the great primary concern that it was as recently as a decade ago, and the great nation states have undoubtedly lost something of their raison d'être. We are now rather more afraid of a trade war than of the traditional form of hostilities, and defence in those circumstances consists in being in a major trade bloc such as the European Union.
In the current debate on devolution in the United Kingdom, which I regard as a major diversion from the main task of improving people's lives and conditions—a task that should be in the forefront of our minds—the issue will ultimately turn on the ability of small nations to support themselves. Scotland is confident that it can do so, but on what is that confidence based? I heard a similar confidence expressed in Quebec in the 1970s, but it weakened as major companies withdrew from that province to the comparative safety of Ontario. I remember, as others do, René Leveque, the premier of Quebec, losing a referendum among his 80 per cent. French-speaking electorate.
There has been a great deal of talk about the German Länder, the revival of which in post-war Germany was insisted on by the French as an antidote to the powerful centralised German state. The establishment of the Länder was meant to be a handicap, but it turned out to be a major advantage. Although large in population terms, they still recognise the value of the Federal Government in Bonn and the cohesion that it provides. Some of the

Länder contribute more to Bonn than they receive from it, but they do not seek on that account to break away from the federal structure. They realise all too well that unity is strength.
I would not argue [Interruption.]—this is my final point—that everything is perfect in the governance of Wales. I should like the energies of our people to be better harnessed, better expressed and better employed. Perhaps the new unitary authorities will contribute to those ends. They are bound to have some type of national forum, and that forum may provide the cohesion required at national level. But a further expensive tier of government is not the answer: it would weaken our power here at Westminster and do nothing to raise the standard of living and improve the quality of life of the people of Wales.

Mr. Denzil Davies: The right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) spoke for some time and ranged widely, but I will be charitable and merely say that it is difficult to break the habit of 15 years on the Front Bench and in the Welsh Office.
The Secretary of State spent much of his speech suspended in cyberspace. I do not know where he is now, but his speech seemed to be immune to the laws of gravity. When the Secretary of State was not suspended in cyberspace, he was communing—or perhaps commuting, if that is possible—with his friend Newt on the Internet. There was certainly not much reality in the Secretary of State's speech.
I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about one thing: there is a lot more grass in Llanelli now than there was in 1979. Unfortunately, grass is not a valuable means of international exchange. I think that we would trade our grass in Llanelli for the jobs—the "real jobs", as Sir Keith Joseph used to call them—in the steel works and in industry that we had throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
The sad reality is that Wales is one of the poorest countries or areas in the whole of Britain—it is not quite as poor as Northern Ireland, but the difference is small. Like the gap between Britain and central states of the European Union, the gap between Wales and the rest of Britain in terms of gross domestic product is widening.
The Secretary of State mentioned the fact that the centre of power in Europe is moving east, and he seemed to think that that problem could be solved by using Internet. The gap in Britain today is not between north and south, but between east and west. Whatever we may think about the single market—we are supposed to venerate it on both sides of the House—we must acknowledge that it will make it more difficult for the western areas of the UK to compete with those in the east. If the Secretary of State thinks that that problem will be solved easily, I will give him an example to consider.
Last year, the Mercedes car company announced the quite momentous decision to build a factory outside Germany. It had never done that before—although it has since built a factory in the United States. In the end, the Mercedes factory was built in France, just inside the Franco-German border, but the company looked initially at locating in Britain.
There are a number of car component factories in Llanelli, but it was extremely difficult for me to conduct negotiations with Mercedes, especially as they were overseen by the Invest in Britain Bureau. I will return to


that in a moment. It proved extremely difficult to persuade Mercedes to look at locating anywhere other than the east, preferably the north-east, of England, because that region faces the continent and is thus closer to the countries of Europe. Our communications in Llanelli and Swansea are not bad—we have good roads, railways and the port of Swansea—but we could not persuade Mercedes to look at our area, and I understand the company's point of view.
Since then, other investors, such as Samsung Electronics, have established factories in the north-east of England. I do not decry those investments; I wish that we could have them. Those investments are going to the north-east because of the aggressive policies pursued by the Invest in Britain Bureau and the North-Eastern development corporation.
The Times of a few weeks ago contained a report about a gentleman by the name of Mr. Foster. He used to work for the North-Eastern development corporation based in Hong Kong and the far east, and he has now been hired by the Invest in Britain Bureau. The Invest in Britain Bureau is now the Welsh Development Agency, WINVEST, or the inward development arm of the Department of Trade and Industry. It is no longer a bureau which seeks investment in Britain; it is being used by the Department of Trade and Industry to channel investment aggressively into parts of England. I think that the Welsh Office and the WDA should wake up to that fact.
I read the London newspapers like the Secretary of State reads the Welsh newspapers, and the press in the capital recently carried a report about the speech made by the Minister for Energy and Industry in which he extolled the virtues of the Thames corridor. Development is taking place along the Thames from Canary Wharf to the sea. He pointed out how a car component factory could be established next to the Ford factory in Dagenham.
That area is ripe for development; it is close to the new City airport, and the thrust of our trade is towards Europe and the single market. As a consequence, I believe that Wales faces an even harder task in attracting future investment to the west of Britain.
We face a further problem in Wales because government—the state—has ceased to be fashionable. Politicians from all parties now decry government. We heard the Secretary of State do that today, and we have come to expect him to hold those views.
Unfortunately, there is a consensus among politicians generally that somehow or other the state is a bad thing. Countries must now have level playing fields. Wales will not get anywhere with a level playing field. We do not want that; we want Governments to intervene to ensure that the playing field is tipped in our favour, because the gap is widening between Wales and England, and between Wales and the countries of central Europe.
There is a constant attempt to decry the powers of government. "Government" is now a dirty word. That was not so in the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s, but apparently we should not put our faith in Governments any more. We are constantly exhorted to follow other theories—I call them false gods. We have been told that the concept of community will replace government and that we should look to that for salvation.
We have great communities in Wales; we are a great nation of communities. But I do not see how the very nebulous concept of community will replace the power of government and the state in performing necessary tasks in Wales.
I recently read a full-page article in The Times written by an American of Italian extraction who was born in Israel, which extolled the virtues of community. It was the most awful drivel that I have read for a long time. According to him, community will perform the functions that the state is no longer allowed to perform. That will not benefit Wales.
We also hear about the dynamic market economy, which apparently we enjoyed throughout the 1980s. It has merely increased the gap between the poorer regions and the rest of Britain. It has kept wages in Wales low compared with those in England.
I do not know why people call it a "dynamic" market economy; I do not think that the word "dynamic" is necessary. We have a market economy which is sometimes dynamic and sometimes not dynamic. Occasionally it is dynamic for a few people—perhaps it is too dynamic for some bankers in the far east—and at other times it is not dynamic at all. It was certainly not dynamic for Wales in the 1980s. The dynamic market economy that the Secretary of State seems to worship was not good for my constituency in the past 10 to 15 years.
We are also told that public expenditure is bad. When the Government came to power in 1979—and even before then, when the Conservatives were in opposition—Baroness Thatcher, Lord Howe and others said how terrible public expenditure and public borrowing was. I am sorry to say that those once heretical views have now become fashionable. It is sad to say that it is not only the fashion in the Conservative party, but the fashion and the consensus in many political parties.
You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will not wish me to mention Maastricht in your presence for a long time, and I shall skate over it very quickly, but the basis of the Maastricht treaty was to reduce public expenditure and public borrowing.
The Secretary of State was waxing lyrical about his friend Newt, but his friend Newt is madder than the Maastrict treaty, because he and his colleagues are now trying to hand over the control of public expenditure in the United States to the Supreme Court. I am a great admirer of the Supreme Court of the United States, which has seen great judges like Frankfurter, Brandeis and others, but neither they nor the present judges would have been very happy to police any possible budget deficit in the United States.
The Secretary of State waxes lyrical about what is happening in America. Let me explain what is happening there. For the past 20 years or more, most working people in America have seen no increase whatsoever in their standards of living. The great American dream has come to a stop for most people in the United States.
There are many reasons for that, and they may relate as much to the global economy as to internal causes, but Newt and his crazy mates are trying to cut public expenditure and get rid of the budget deficit so that they can hand some money back to the great American middle class in tax cuts as compensation for the fact that there has been no growth in their earnings. It cannot work. It is extraordinary desperation. They are trying somehow to give some money back to those people. After year one, it will not work; where will the money come from in years two, three and four?
The Secretary of State tried to put forward his philosophy. We heard much about the Internet, and we accept the importance of technology, but he did not


address the danger that not everybody will benefit from intellectual capital. Only a few people will benefit—not the old capitalists of socialist hatred in the past or the old rentier classes, but the new intellectual capitalists. If I were able to operate a computer programming system called C++, and if I were only 22 years old, I could earn £50,000 a year or more in London today. Very few people can operate C++, and when a new system is developed and then another, the same will happen.
The benefits of technology to which the Secretary of State refers will fall on only 10 per cent. of the population.

Mr. Gwilym Jones: indicated dissent.

Mr. Davies: The Under-Secretary shakes his head, but he has not really thought very much about it. Perhaps the Secretary of State has. The benefits of new technology may well fall on only 10 or 15 per cent. of the population, and not many of them will be in Wales.
Research and development investment in Wales is the lowest in Britain, and we are not involved in those developments. I appreciate the Secretary of State trying to get us in, but if I and other commentators are right, the danger in future is that most people will not see any economic growth—only the 40 or 50 per cent. who have been accustomed to it, and a few at the top.
Some old-fashioned rentier capitalists will benefit, because western investment will still be needed to develop the markets and the industries of China and India, and no doubt income will flow hack to Britain as well as income from intellectual capital. What may well happen is that the country's GDP will reduce in proportion to its GNP, and the gap will get wider as more income comes in from outside without producing wealth in Britain. That is why we need government, and we return to the contempt for government.
Only government can redistribute that wealth to create some economic and social justice in a society where most people—not just the unemployed, the underclass or those who do not want to work—will not benefit from the fruits of society and the global economy. The Secretary of State tried to present the problem in a glib way, but I believe that only by actively interfering in the economy can the Government do anything about it in future.
I well remember hearing from Lady Thatcher, Keith Joseph and Lord Howe, and from my right hon. and hon. Friends, that the British economy would benefit from lower rates of taxation and that we should abolish progressive rates of taxation which were inhibiting as the rates were too high.
The Government have abolished the progressive system of taxation. We now have a top rate of 40 per cent. and it has not done my constituents or the Welsh economy much good over the past 10 or 15 years, because the gap between Wales and other parts of the economy has grown wider. The idea that we can benefit from a lack of progressive taxation is again trying to make us worship false gods. All the emphasis is on inflation. We must not say anything about inflation. Of course we are all against inflation, but the whole emphasis on inflation as opposed to every other economic policy has not done the people of Wales much good, either.
How much do entrepreneurs or small and medium-sized business persons in Llanelli have to pay the National Westminster bank or the Midland bank in Llanelli for a

loan? It is probably 10 per cent., or 4 per cent. above base rate, yet the bank suffers a decline of only 2 per cent. in the value of the money it lends—perhaps even less than that. The banks are able to borrow money and suffer very small losses through inflation, and the business man who is supposed to invest and create growth has to pay 10 or 11 per cent.
I agree with those who say that we must not look outside but create our own economy. Why are only banks allowed to beat inflation? Sometimes they try too hard or are too foolish, and we see what happens. Why should a business man in Llanelli have to pay 10 or 11 per cent. to borrow money when inflation is only 2 per cent.?
Why is it the fashionable political consensus that central bankers can determine all the levels of growth and investment in the economy, when the Government are concentrating everything upon inflation? It has not done, and is not doing, my constituents much good.
Finally, I must mention the single currency. The Secretary of State waxed lyrical about all the growth in manufacturing. There has been some growth in manufacturing, and I welcome it, but he will be the first to admit that one of the main reasons for export growth is that the Government were ejected from the exchange rate mechanism.
I was pleased to see in the newspapers today that the Spanish Finance Minister is beginning to get worried because there is 25 per cent. unemployment in Spain. He was foolish to have said that it would not really matter if Spain were also shunted out of the exchange rate mechanism, because the peseta is now down on the floor.
I was a member of the much-reviled Labour Government of 1975–79. I was the Treasury Minister who, after considerable consideration, took the decision not to enter the exchange rate mechanism—and not merely for political reasons, but because of some brilliant analysis and destruction of the idea by Treasury civil servants. It is no thanks to the Government that we have an increase in manufacturing.
We are now talking about a single currency; the right hon. Member for Conwy touched upon it. Why does nobody ask the Welsh about the single currency? We have had a single currency since Henry VII or Hywel Dda. I am not sure what the currency in Wales was before the Act of Union.
I have spent much of my political life in the House for 20 years—and so have my colleagues—trying to fight the centralising tendencies of single currencies. That single currency was in London. Am I now being told that I must give up that battle and fight against the centralising tendencies of the ecu or whatever it will be called in Brussels? What hope is there for the Welsh economy on the western periphery of the empire if there is such a central currency?
All those concepts that we are being asked to pursue are false gods. We should return to the simple, old-fashioned idea that Governments should try as best they can in a global economy to keep the levers of economic power to themselves. They should not be afraid to use them democratically and face the democratic consequences of doing so, instead of shunting power away to quangos and communities and indulging in other sorts of escapist notions. At the end of the day, the people who sent us here want us to exercise power, and they want to hold us to account for it.

Mr. Walter Sweeney: I join other hon. Members in welcoming the new Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), not only to the House but to his first debate on Welsh affairs. I wish him every joy in representing his constituents, in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor.
In every debate on Wales, I listen to Opposition Members and wonder which country they are talking about. It does not seem to bear much resemblance to the Wales that I see when I go home to the Vale of Glamorgan. We are used to hearing gloomy messages, such as those in the speech by the right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies). He talked down the Welsh people and the Welsh economy.
The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) seemed to depart from his usual script, because instead of concentrating on running down Wales, he concentrated on running down the Secretary of State for Wales. When will he realise that it is not through running down Wales or the Secretary of State, but through building and developing policies for the future of Wales, that we can hope to see a better future for its people? That future will be built on the successes of the past 15 years.
Perhaps the Labour party cannot bear to face reality. I should like to address some aspects of that reality in terms of Wales as a whole and from my vantage point in the Vale of Glamorgan. By any standards, my constituency is a marginal seat, which means that it may serve as an economic and political barometer of Wales. First, I should like to look at the economy.
Conservative policies have secured record inward investment. Between April 1983 and April 1993, more than 11,000 new projects have invested nearly £5.5 billion in the Welsh economy, creating or safeguarding nearly 110,000 jobs. The Ford plant at Bridgend, and Bosch near the M4 on the edge of my constituency, have provided extra jobs in the Vale of Glamorgan.
The expansion of Dow Corning and Cabot in Barry are good news for the chemical complex there, and for jobs. The British Airways aircraft maintenance base near Cardiff-Wales airport has provided new, highly skilled jobs. RAF St. Athan, the biggest employer in the vale, is doing magnificent work in aircraft maintenance, using a successful mix of RAF and civilian staff.
Conservative Governments have created a climate for investment. The number of days lost through strikes in Wales has fallen from an average of 1,590 working days per 1,000 employees in 1979 to 10 in 1989. Welsh unemployment is now in line with that of the rest of the UK, and is below the European average.

Mr. Llew Smith: The hon. Gentleman compares the days lost through strikes in 1979 with those lost at the present time. Would he care to compare the number of days lost through unemployment in 1979 and those that are lost at present?

Mr. Sweeney: I agree that there has been a substantial increase in unemployment, but there has been an increase throughout the European Union. Over the past 20 months, there has been a steady fall in

unemployment throughout the UK. Britain has been leading the way and setting an example for the rest of the European Union.
In education, Wales has made considerable progress. More young people are obtaining better grades in GCSE and A-level examinations, and more are going on to further education. Sixty-one per cent. of our 16 to 18-year-olds continued their education in 1992–93, compared with 45 per cent. in 1987–88.
Local management has enabled schools to have more control over their budgets, and those which have advanced to grant-maintained status have proved popular and successful. There are now 15 such schools in Wales. My only regret is that many more schools which could benefit from grant-maintained status are not doing so, because of misguided, doctrinaire, left-wing campaigns against them.
So far there are no grant-maintained schools in my constituency, but elsewhere in the Vale of Glamorgan, in Penarth, the schools that have acquired that status are demonstrating how worth while it can be. I look forward to seeing many grant-maintained schools in my part of the vale in the near future.
I particularly welcome the Secretary of State's recent announcement about more resources to provide extra places in popular schools. That is a fundamental, central part of Conservative policy. We believe in encouraging parents to send their children to the best available schools in their neighbourhood, and it is clear that at least some Opposition Members understand that very well.
Spending on the national health service has increased by over 70 per cent. in real terms since 1979 to more that £2 billion in 1994–95. That amounts to £716 for every man, woman and child. Our health reforms have cut waiting lists and increased the number of patients treated. Since 1979, general practitioners have increased by 337 and there are nearly 6,000 extra nurses. The number of in-patients has gone up from 350,000 to more than 500,000. We have halved the infant mortality rate, and men are living some three years longer and women some 2.8 years longer than they were when the Government came to power.
In the Vale of Glamorgan, the Llandough hospital trust is providing various sophisticated day care treatments. The complaints for which those treatments are used once required hospitalisation, but day care means that people do not suffer the trauma of going into hospital and staying overnight. It also means that beds are released for patients who need in-care treatment. In Barry a brand new neighbourhood hospital is virtually complete and will provide a high standard of service for the people of Barry.
More people than ever own their own homes. Home ownership rose from 59 per cent. in 1979 to more than 71 per cent. in 1993, which is higher than anywhere else in the UK. That is good news, and we should be singing it from the rooftops instead of running down Wales all the time. Nearly 102,000 public sector tenants have bought their own homes, giving themselves the freedom of choice and pride of ownership that that involves.
In local government, we have succeeded in introducing unitary authorities, which will provide more local accountability and more efficient local services for everyone in Wales.

Mr. Win Griffiths: There is no evidence for that.

Mr. Sweeney: The hon. Gentleman says that there is no evidence for that, but we must wait and see. The shadow authorities are due to be elected on 4 May, and a year later we shall see the success of that Conservative policy.
In my region, we look forward to the new Vale of Glamorgan county borough council with joyful anticipation. The Vale of Glamorgan will be slightly enlarged, which will contribute to the efficiency of that new authority. We will he free from the domination of the Labour-controlled, Cardiff-based South Glamorgan county council. Local government reorganisation is a cause of celebration. By the time that we next celebrate St. David's day, the new shadow authorities will he close to taking over full control of local government. People will recognise the success of that Conservative policy.
We have invested nearly £2 billion in improving the motorway and trunk road network in Wales, completing 25 miles of motorway and 154 miles of trunk road. [Interruption.] I notice that some Opposition Members are not listening. They should be aware of such good news. Those are the achievements of a Conservative Government.
Effective transport links are a vital aspect of the competitiveness of Welsh businesses. I welcomed the assurance of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State some months ago, in response to my question in the House, that he would entertain a bid from South Glamorgan county council for funding for a good road between Culverhouse Cross and Cardiff-Wales airport. I hope that South Glamorgan was listening to that, and that it will put in a realistic hid that will attract support from the Welsh Office.
Judging from my postbag and my surgeries, the biggest concern of my constituents has been the crime level in the Vale of Glamorgan. It is good news for Wales that, thanks to recent legislation, the crime level has at last turned downwards. I particularly welcome the announcement of my right hon. Friend, in conjunction with the Home Secretary, of a big increase in funding for the police, which is to be paid directly to the police. That is good news for my constituents, and we truly appreciate it.
There is a great deal of good news for Wales. Let us take the message back to Wales that we are proud of Wales, of the Welsh people, of our Secretary of State and of our Government.

Mr. Alex Carlile: I join in the welcome that has been given to the hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig). He follows a man who was popular in the House and unpompous in his attitude to all hon. Members, even when he was leader of his party. I am sure that the hon. Member will prove a worthy successor.
We heard the Secretary of State for Wales give some welcome assurances about the information super-highway, especially in relation to the fact that it will

reach rural mid-Wales. That has much wider implications than merely allowing a few people to move into rural areas to work as derivatives traders, or in similar enterprises. It has yet to impinge on farming, the biggest industry of rural mid-Wales, which faces a critical situation.
I welcomed, as did others, the statement by the chairman of the Welsh Development Agency and of the Development Board for Rural Wales, Mr. Rowe-Beddoe, in this building yesterday. He said that close attention was being given to the possibility of bringing into Wales significant meat processing facilities that are currently not available. I hope that action will be taken quickly on that promise. I invite the Secretary of State to remember that significant meat processing facilities already exist in Wales. For example, Edward Hamer International Ltd. in my constituency has such facilities. It is run by Edward Hamer, a tough, hard-headed and experienced business man. I hope that efforts will be made to build on such indigenous businesses. We should not merely look outside for possibly another disastrous and failed Fortex-type enterprise.
Like the Secretary of State, I welcome the destruction, for it was needed, of the Oldford estate on the edge of Welshpool. I am not sure that he can claim much credit for that. That move arises from a partnership between Clwyd-Alyn housing association and Montgomeryshire district council, which the Secretary of State has seen fit to abolish, despite a decision to the contrary by the Standing Committee that dealt with the matter, but I do not especially want to reopen old wounds.
I welcome the Secretary of State's commitment to what sounded like the rough sleeper's initiative, which has been successful through the efforts, for example, of the Salvation Army and of the Salvation Army housing association in Mile End road, Whitechapel. One should bear in mind the fact that a large number of people were not sleeping rough in Wales before the Government came into office, but now a large number are. Tonight, I do not want to debate whether a cause and effect relationship exists there, but I hope that a full commitment is made to removing homelessness from the streets of Wales.
It would be tempting to use this debate to address a host of concerns about various aspects of Government policy, but I want to deal with just one issue, which is of wider relevance, but has a particular and important relevance in Wales. The Government's policy on community care funding is evidence of their talent for frustrating the democratically expressed views and wishes of the people of Wales for a decent level of service from local and national Government. It is important to test promises against reality. The Government's promises on community care and the reality of the funding that is being delivered are different.
Increasing evidence exists that community care in Wales is underfunded, undervalued by the Government and variable in its application in different parts of Wales. I would not cry "crisis" if none existed. The critical realities of community care in Wales warrant the immediate attention of the Secretary of State. He could start by reviewing his failure to cover the transitional cost of the shift to community and council organisation of care. He could then realistically appraise growing long-term demand.
It is not a problem of substantive policy. Community care is a policy with sound aims, but we should not lose sight of the significant group of people who will always need institutional care and who seem not to be fully catered for in current policy. For me, a particular constituency interest is involved in that context.
There is no comfort in a policy of community care if there is no corresponding policy of investment in its implementation. Demographic changes are well documented as a sign of need and demand. In the United Kingdom, the number of people aged over 85 amounted to approximately 900,000 in 1991 and that number is expected to rise steadily to 1.2 million by 2001. The number of elderly people living alone has risen from 35 per cent. in 1971 to 45 per cent. by 1991. The dependency ratio is rising dramatically across the country. That should be reflected realistically in Government policy. It is a particular problem in rural Wales, where people tend to live longer.
Today, the British Medical Association published its report, "Taking Care of the Carers". It has cogently brought to our attention the growing number of unpaid carers—a group of people whose position is often ignored by the Government. It is estimated that, nationally, unpaid carers provide the equivalent of a huge £34 billion worth of care. That is an astonishing amount when compared with the cost of institutional and professional care, which amounts to £10 billion. Less than a quarter of care is being provided by the state and local authorities; three quarters of it is being provided by volunteers.
It is estimated that there are 340,000 unpaid carers in Wales, of whom just over half are main carers, that 80,000 care for more than 20 hours a week, and that there are 485,000 people whose lives are limited in some way by long-term illness and who need some care. That is the scale of the problem. Government policy relies—reasonably to some extent but, unfortunately, too much—on the love and affection of those carers, who are often wholly unrewarded for the devotion that they give to those for whom they care.
Of the eight counties in Wales, four have projected overspends on their community care budget. In more than half of the counties, planned development of the service has been cut when it needs to be increased. Extremely tight limits have been placed on the costs of care packages, and the limits have been based on cash, not need. That cannot be right. Eligibility criteria have been tightened and charges for care have been increased. These are not the actions of financially irresponsible councillors but are sometimes cruel economies which have been caused by Government policy.
The figures are self-evident. Clwyd projects a £500,000 shortfall on its community care budget. Powys has introduced new eligibility criteria for services under the new social care plan and has implemented cuts in the provision of social domiciliary services that are especially important if people are to remain independent in remote rural areas. Residential and day care services have also been cut. The cuts in day care have given rise to many complaints by elderly constituents and their families. Despite those cuts, Powys still faces a possible shortfall of £300,000 on its budget for 1995–96.
I am advised that in Gwynedd there is an estimated shortfall of £500,000 in 1994–95, and it has had to borrow money from next year's budget. In South Glamorgan, there is an estimated shortfall of £1.3 million and the cost

of care packages has been cut to the bone. In short, in all eight counties there is a tight squeeze, not on the basis of need but on the basis of obedience to central Government.
A recent and, I think, objective report by the Assembly of Welsh Counties on the implementation of community care in Wales has shown where the blame lies. The assembly acknowledged successes where it was appropriate to do so but also highlighted the failure of the Welsh Office to take realistic account in its funding settlements of the additional costs of the implementation of community care.
The total funding so far announced for community care in Wales is no more than the amount spent in 1992 on supporting people in residential care. Taking into account the implementation costs for community care, the result is a chaotic, variable and inadequate service. The Government must have realised when they decided to go for a community care policy that it was bound to be more expensive. Having made the policy decision, they failed wretchedly to fund the policy. If a policy merits being introduced—as I said, I support many of its objectives—it must surely merit the necessary investment.
The reality is that achieving the aim of providing choices and individual care packages looks very unlikely when some authorities are struggling to find the money. As an example, I cite the plight of small care homes in the private sector which have two or three residents. The owners are placed in the hopeless position of not even having funding for respite care, so they cannot have a few days' holiday and come back refreshed to look after their residents.
The community care settlements for Wales no longer have an adequate element of infrastructure funding—the money required to make the system work, as opposed to the money required to purchase the care that people need. That is despite the constant warnings of Welsh authorities that care in the community needed to be phased in over a number of years.
The Welsh Office should also examine the mismatch between health and social services authorities in respect of payments for care. While the Government's recent guidelines are at least an attempt to deal with the issue, reliance on the decisions of individual health and social services authorities means that different areas have different arrangements for the payment of care. That leads to the breakdown of sound common standards and fuels the anxiety and uncertainty felt by those who need care. They feel that they are merely numbers in a national lottery of care.
In rural Wales in particular, where there is a very high level of owner-occupation, uncertainty about payment for community care is leading people to believe—in some cases wrongly but, I fear, in some cases, rightly—that they will have to sell the family home or the family farm, family institutions which, in rural areas, might have existed for centuries.
If the Secretary of State does not wish to deal with such matters; if he is saying that he cannot afford to provide the money for decent care services or that he has no commitment to invest enough in the future of community care, he should make it clear that that is his view. If that is not his view, he should summon up from somewhere


the leadership and imagination that he so strongly advocates as a general principle in The House Magazine this week, and of which he spoke earlier today.

Mr. Redwood: The House should remember that, in the current year, an additional £86 million was made available for care in the community, and that will rise to £124.4 million next year. That was the original planned amount even though inflation—I am glad to say—is much lower. I was recently pleased to visit the many new nursing and residential care homes being built on the back of the money that will be available in future for the people who need those places. I agree that some people need institutional care, and I have asked that we do not lose sight of that fact.

Mr. Carlile: I am grateful for the Secretary of State's final remark, to which I shall return in a moment. However, I remind him that the gap between grant and need was £20.7 million for 1993–94 and £38 million for 1994–95 and will be £71.8 million in 1995–96. Local authorities have no prospect of filling that gap. The Welsh Office has outlined a grant rise of £25.2 million for 1996–97, which will increase the overall funding for community care to £149.6 million, but that has to be set against the £346 million originally assessed to be the long-term additional cost of implementing community care in the period to which I have just referred. Although funding is being increased, it is falling ever shorter of what the Government knew perfectly well was needed. The mismatch to which I referred is therefore proved.
The Secretary of State holds the old-fashioned view that care of the elderly is the responsibility of families first and, where no alternative is available, possibly of the community. Of course families should take more responsibility for the care of the elderly if they can, just as they should take more responsibility for the actions of their children, if they can. But that philosophy—if it be his philosophy—is that of the poor law and workhouse for those who do not have loving, caring and responsible families.
Finally, I shall deal with those who require long-term institutional care. There are two excellent mental handicap hospitals in my constituency—Brynhyfryd near Welshpool and Llys Maldwyn at Caersws. Some people have been transferred between those hospitals in unsatisfactory circumstances. Some have been transferred from them, and have lost the standard of care that they received before. There has been one sad fatality as a result. Many face great uncertainty. We should not transfer, for instance, adults with serious mental handicaps from institution-based care to the community if adequate community resources do not exist. There is no sanctuary in the community if the community means isolation, limited support and poor staffing.
The patients and former patients of those hospitals—especially the least independent—provide a benchmark for the way in which the care in the community policy is working. If so, the verdict of the carers, of the energetic advocates of the residents' interests and of their relatives is one of bewilderment, uncertainty and, in some cases, anger. Surely a policy that leaves experts and the lay public alike in that state of mind cannot be judged a success. I appeal to the Secretary of State to re-examine both its funding and its implementation.

8 pm

Mr. Don Touhig: As I rise to make my maiden speech in this St. David's day debate, I am conscious of the privilege of standing here as Labour and Co-op Member of Parliament for Islwyn. I am privileged to follow in a great tradition—from Sir Charles Edwards, who was elected in 1918 and became a Labour Whip, to the much-respected Sir Harold Finch, who became a Welsh Office Minister in 1964 and was an acknowledged expert on miners' compensation. I am, of course, also privileged to succeed Neil Kinnock, my immediate predecessor.
Right hon. and hon. Members have already paid tribute to Neil Kinnock and his service in the House. I echo that tribute. Neil Kinnock was a great leader of the Labour party, and a fine and hard-working constituency Member of Parliament. He is held in high regard and a great deal of affection by the people whom he represented in Islwyn for 25 years. The fact that he did not become Prime Minister is one of the great political and social misfortunes to befall our country in this, the last part of the 20th century.
My constituency comprises a series of small towns and villages scattered along the mountains and valleys of west Gwent. Its people are warm-hearted and friendly, generous and good-natured. They possess a strong feeling of community and belonging, forged by generations who have known struggle and hardship. They are proud of their own and their children's achievements, which have often involved considerable sacrifices, but, like people everywhere, they want the best for their children and grandchildren. They want work, not benefits; they want opportunities to enrich their lives through education; and they want a decent standard of health care.
Those benefits are not available to a great many of the people who sent me to the House of Commons. We have 2,000 people unemployed in Islwyn; one third are under the age of 24, and one third have been unemployed for more than a year. The day after the Islwyn by-election, 80 job losses were announced at Hawker Siddeley in Blackwood. We have schools struggling to deliver education with budgets that have been squeezed because the Government have held back funds for public services. As for our health service, a hospital adjoining my constituency recently appealed to the public not to come to the casualty unit because there were not enough doctors to treat emergency cases.
My predecessor stood here to make his maiden speech in 1970 during a debate on health. Nearly a quarter of a century later, I too wish to speak about the national health service and the care that it provides for my constituents. A man from Gwent dreamed the dreams and gave us all the vision that became the NHS—Aneurin Bevan: he did it with drive and energy, in the face of the fiercest opposition from the Conservative party. He succeeded because all right-thinking people agreed that if our claim to be a civilised society had any legitimacy, no sick person should be denied treatment because he or she was unable to pay for it.
In his book "In Place of Fear", published in 1952, Bevan wrote:
A free health service is a triumphant example of the superiority of collective action and public initiative applied to a segment of society where commercial principles are seen at their worst".


That, 50 years on, the present Government have eroded the ideal of a free and accessible health service and once again allowed some of the worst aspects of commercialisation to creep into health care is proof of how far they have turned the clock back.
In his maiden speech, my predecessor said:
Public confidence in the National Health Service will be eroded by governmental neglect and by the garish shop window of private health schemes."—[Official Report, 13 July 1970; Vol. 803, c. 1183.]
Ministers make much of so-called reforms of the health service, but—speaking for those who use it, as opposed to the Conservative Members who legislate on how it should be funded—I can tell the Secretary of State that he and his party have lost the confidence of the people of Wales, who do not trust them to care for our health service.
A few days ago, the Under-Secretary of State wrote to me—and to other Welsh Members of Parliament—about the NHS's responsibilities to meet continuing health care needs. He said that health authorities had been issued with new guidelines that confirmed that the NHS had a clear responsibility to arrange and fund a range of services to meet the needs of people who require continuing health care. Would that the Minister was so diligent in ensuring the availability of adequate funds for primary health care.
A lady whom I shall see in my surgery on Saturday morning has been suffering pain for a long time. She needs an operation on her spine, which has been postponed four times because the providers of the funds cannot reach an agreement with the hospital where the operation will be performed about the mechanisms of treating her and providing the money.
Similarly, if the Minister had been diligent the wife of a good friend of mine would not have been in considerable pain for some time. Her family recently had to make a difficult decision. She was told that she would not be able to obtain an appointment to see a consultant for six to eight weeks, and that if she needed treatment it could not be delivered for a year to 18 months. She was also told that she could be treated privately. The pain has been considerable, and the family has now decided that she will become a private patient. She saw a consultant on Tuesday this week, and will be admitted to hospital tomorrow morning to have the treatment that she so badly needs: and the Conservative party says that it is not delivering a two-tier health service!
On Wednesday, The Times reported that four fundholding general practices in London were sharing nearly £ 1 million of budget savings that they had made on drug provision and health care. Last night I talked to an old friend of mine, Dipak Ray, a respected GP in Pengam. He said that there might be some justification for making savings on drug provision—but savings on hospital care? Who is suffering as a result of that?
I understand that on Monday the Public Accounts Committee heard of another fundholding practice in Essex that had used £30,000 of savings in its budget—a budget given to those GPs for health care—to open a health shop selling woks. The GPs offered patients £1 off the cost of a wok if they brought in their own frying pans. It reminds me of the pantomime about Aladdin and his lamp. I recently attended a performance of that pantomime at Cefn Fforest junior school in my constituency.
I am sure that hon. Members know the story of Aladdin and his lamp, and how the wicked Uncle Abenazer managed to get possession of the lamp by offering new lamps for old. The Secretary of State is a modern-day Uncle Abenazer, peddling cranky economic theories to fund our health service, which he offers in exchange for the values of a free health service accessible to all.
In Gwent, we have 17 GP fundholding practices. The Welsh Office has recently announced a change in the guidelines and now GPs with just 4,000 patients may apply to become fundholders. Under the guise of giving GPs control of their budgets, the Welsh Office is continuing to develop a two-tier health service.
In Islwyn we have no general hospital. Recently, a plan for health care in the Islwyn area showed that in 1993–94, 30,000 people from the constituency went to their nearest general hospital out-patient department, some 15 miles away from Blackwood at Newport. The No. 1 priority identified in that health plan is the need for a hospital at Islwyn with in-patient, out-patient and minor casualty facilities. Gwent health authority proposed a neighbourhood hospital for Islwyn in its "Gwent 2000" document some years ago. I hope that the new health commission will honour this commitment, for which I have launched a petition and gained support throughout the constituency.
In Islwyn, the percentage of babies with low birth weight is higher than anywhere in Wales. Islwyn has the lowest vaccination rate in Gwent for children under two years old and for pre-school vaccination boosters. Islwyn has the highest level of untreated dental disease among children. Breast cancer, the commonest cause of death among women between 45 and 54 years old, causes great concern. Although the number of cases may be comparatively small, their incidence has considerable impact on families. Unfortunately, there is a great lack of knowledge among the public about how to cope with those difficulties. People do not seem to know where to get help.
The Islwyn Cancer Link group, which is run by a voluntary team of women who operate from a portakabin, is doing the job that should be done by the health service in Islwyn. It is so desperately in need of funds that the mayor of Islwyn, Joyce Morgan, has made Cancer Link and raising funds for it her charity this year. We are returning to flag days to raise funds for the health service.
In Islwyn, people over 65 years old already form 15 per cent. of the population. That number will increase to half the population by 2026 and population projections show that the proportion of people over 75 in Islwyn will be the highest in Gwent by 2006. We must begin to prepare care for those people.
There is an increasing incidence of asthma among the young and an increasing death rate from respiratory diseases such as chronic bronchitis and emphysema among men. Known cases of Huntingdon's disease are four times the national average and there are twice the number of deaths from the disease than are expected in a constituency the size of mine, yet there is only limited genetic counselling available.
Those figures are given as an updated audit on the state of health care in the constituency of Islwyn. Health service resources should be available to the patient when he or she needs them. Provision of health service care is the responsibility of the community and its Government. Refusing people treatment when they need health care


because of problems with organising funding or if they cannot go private is acting like those who passed on the other side of the road to Jericho. It may make sound economic sense to the Conservative party, but it is morally indefensible for the Government of Britain to behave so at the end of the 20th century.

Mr. Cynog Dafis: I warmly welcome the hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) and thank him very much for his important speech and his critique of Government policy on the health service. I enjoyed my occasional stay in Islwyn during the campaign, saw something of the hon. Gentleman and appreciated the spirit in which the campaign was fought. My one regret is that, during his maiden speech, there were not more Conservative Members present to listen to what he said.

Mr. Ron Davies: There are too many.

Mr. Dafis: Indeed, but more should have been here to listen to the hon. Gentleman's speech.
I want to speak about the education service in Wales, especially about what is going on in Dyfed. Three weeks ago, I attended a packed meeting—so packed that some people had to be excluded—at Trinity college Carmarthen that was convened by the federations of school governors in Dyfed and the parent-teacher associations. It was attended by parents, teachers, school governors and councillors united—I emphasise—in anger at the crisis facing schools as a result of cuts in county funding.
The catalyst for the meeting was the Welsh Office's refusal to fund the teachers' pay rise of 2.7 per cent. The immediate objective of the meeting was to urge Dyfed county council to use some of its reserves to fund the shortfall. It was said that unless Dyfed dug into its reserves, about 150 teachers would be dismissed in September, there would be cuts in the schools' budgets of 2.8 per cent. despite an anticipated increase in pupil numbers and one third of Dyfed's schools would find themselves in budget deficit.
The immediate objective was achieved. The following day, Dyfed county council agreed to release £1.3 million from its £4 million reserves to fund the 2.7 per cent. pay award over what had been originally intended. The meeting recognised too that there was an underlying and severe funding problem that pre-dated the teachers' pay award of 2.7 per cent. Underlying that crisis, there was something much deeper.
Since 1993, Dyfed county council has found its budget squeezed in an intolerable fashion. In 1994–95, for example, the budget was increased by 1.75 per cent. in a year when inflation ran at more than 2 per cent. In 1995–96, the increase will be 0.4 per cent., when inflation is anticipated to be between 3 and 4 per cent. On top of inflation, of course, which is crucial, the county council in particular, along with other local authorities, has faced additional responsibilities and demands—many of them statutory. It has found itself facing the results of demographic changes—an increase in the number of elderly people and the associated cost—and an increase in the number of schoolchildren.
I shall cite one example of the additional statutory requirements faced by a county such as Dyfed—indeed, by all counties in Wales in recent years. The Education Act 1993 created a statementing procedure for special educational needs that local authorities are obliged to implement. The increase in the amount of statements over recent years is worth noting and is very significant. The number of statements has increased from 646 in 1990 to 2,117 in 1995. In other words, it has more than trebled, which requires resources and involves costs. That constant increase has been driven, first, by parent demand—parents' awareness of what could be available to them and their awareness of their rights in that regard—and, of course, by statutory provision.
In 1993–94, Dyfed budgeted £5.4 million for special educational needs. It actually spent in that year, because it was obliged to, nearer £6 million. In 1994–95, the budget was set at £6.167 million, but it is likely to be £6.76 million. The 1995–96 budget has meant that Dyfed has had to cut education spending by 3 per cent.—£4.5 million. That cut in education is the lowest proportional cut across the departments of the county council.
I want to give some examples of what is being cut. People have been perfectly justified in demanding additional resources for discretionary awards in further education. However, Dyfed is having to cut £150,000 in respect of discretionary awards. Over recent years, community education has increasingly been becoming a Cinderella. That is regrettable. However, Dyfed is having to cut £100,000 from its community education.
Dyfed is also having to cut the repair and maintenance of school buildings by £1.4 million. That is a hopeless approach to housekeeping. Dyfed is also having to cut £100,000 from in-service teacher training. In doing so, it loses the opportunity of GEST—grants for education support and training—funding from the Welsh Office of a further £150,000.
More important than any of that is the fact that there is no provision in Dyfed's budget this year for inflation in school budgets for non-pay items—books, materials and equipment. At a time when we are talking about the need to raise education standards, the basic materials are now being cut because there is no provision for inflation.
The lack of provision for inflation means that schools will have to fund a significant part of the teachers' pay rise from their own budgets. They will have to find that money from their reserves—some schools have reserves, but others have deficits and no reserves—or from a further cut in the funding for books, materials and so on. The euphemism used in that regard is efficiency savings.
When the basic provisions in schools are cut, the situation becomes critical. At the very best it means that a school's parents and supporters will have to raise funds to make up the shortfall. They are raising funds now, not for additional luxuries that one might think it reasonable for parents to contribute to, but for the fundamental necessities of education in schools. That is entirely unacceptable because it is an unfair burden. Parents find that they must contribute constantly to all kinds of causes. It is also pernicious because it is inequitable. Parents in some areas are clearly better able to make up the shortfall than parents in other areas. Inequity is increasingly becoming a feature of the school scene.
That state of affairs has led governors in Dyfed, not councillors, to ask for a meeting with the Secretary of State for Wales. I do not know whether he has received


the request yet. If not, he will receive it soon and I hope that he will agree to the meeting. Tomorrow, representatives of people in Dyfed will hand in 2,000 letters to the Welsh Office in Cardiff and a petition will be presented in the near future.
People are very angry. I have rarely felt such anger among people in respect of the implementation of policy. There is deep anger, resentment and hostility towards the Government. People now understand perfectly what is happening. They understand what is afoot. They understand the hidden agenda, which has been exposed to all and sundry. The agenda is to undermine and remove local authority responsibility for schools. The intention is that that should be achieved by a combination of Government-imposed financial constraint and privation and the promotion of grant-maintained status, complete with inducements. These are the pincers the Government are using in order to bring their aim to fruition.
Part of the process involves obliging local authorities to dip into their reserves to reduce those reserves to perilously low levels. That weakens the position of local government in the process of reorganisation.
The Government are zealous in their promotion of grant-maintained status. Last July, the former Minister of State, the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) announced new measures in relation to GM status that meant that governors were obliged to consider the issue annually; the issue had to appear on the agenda every year. There was always an increased aid package for schools considering becoming grant-maintained.
The former Minister of State's successor, the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards), the hammer of local government, is even more fanatical in his zeal for GM status. In September, he announced that information packs were to be sent to schools—and these are his words; I would not use them—
outlining the advantages and opportunities offered by grant-maintained status.
Those information packs include significant inducements. Special purpose grants, capital grants and transitional grants are on offer. Those grants are significantly more generous than anything that could be available from a local education authority. For example, an 80-pupil school would, if it opted for and obtained GM status, receive a total of £53,400 in its first year. That is quite an inducement and it is difficult to resist.
Dyfed county council has calculated the difference between what the Welsh Office would provide in that way and what the local education authority would be able to provide. If all schools in Dyfed were to become grant-maintained, the difference between what the Welsh Office is offering as an inducement and what Dyfed can offer would be £14,936,000. That is a nice sum which Dyfed could use to combat its shortfall.
An extrapolation of that concept on an all-Wales basis shows that the Government are offering £124 million if all the schools in Wales were to choose GM status and the Welsh Office agreed to that. It is worth asking what would happen if that occurred. Would the Welsh Office be prepared to foot such a bill?
Significant inducements are on offer and all that is happening at the same time as local government reorganisation. Local authorities will soon have to prepare and present their service delivery plans for the new

unitary authorities. Those plans are the descriptions of how they are going to deliver services, and that includes education.
How can local authorities possibly decide how to deliver education services? How can they decide the size of the establishment which will be available or which they will have to recruit? How can they decide how best to collaborate with adjoining local authorities to arrange the delivery of services if they cannot even be sure how many schools they will have to service?
It is quite clear that it is the Government's intention—I believe this; it is not just rhetoric—to achieve their aim of making GM status the norm and having all schools in Wales grant-maintained by creating disorder in the existing system. When the Conservative party presents itself as the advocate of social order and the orderly implementation of policies, it is astonishing to find a Conservative Government employing tactics of the worst kind of anarchism to achieve their aim. They believe that if they undermine the present system, they will be able to create their new Jerusalem according to their own values and model. The greatest deceit is that that is done in the name of choice and diversity.
I was very disappointed to hear the leader of the Labour party recently defend the grant-maintained sector as providing a welcome element of choice. Of course, we know that choice exists for those who can afford it and for those who are themselves chosen. Grant-maintained status and its development are really about selection. That is what it will inevitably lead to, and that is implicit in the Education Act. The reintroduction of selection at 11-plus is its intention. In part, grant-maintained status is a vehicle for that. The statement of the Labour leader clearly shows the need for distinctive Welsh policies and for the power to legislate in Wales, whatever party is in power in London.
Hardly any aspect of policy demonstrates more clearly the need for Welsh self-government than education. The so-called reforms of the past decade have been designed in a way that, at best, is inappropriate for Wales and they are certainly incompatible with our values and aspirations. That is true of the encouragement of competition between schools, the design of the curriculum, which is inappropriate to the Welsh situation, and the setting up of two parallel systems of public sector schools and then letting them fight it out to the death. That is what the Government are imposing.

Mr. Richards: The hon. Gentleman said that the design of the national curriculum for Wales was inappropriate. Does he mean, therefore, that making Welsh a core subject in the national curriculum was inappropriate for Wales?

Mr. Dafis: The hon. Gentleman would be surprised if I answered yes. I am referring not to that but to the structure of the curriculum and the fact that the curriculum has not been designed on the basis of the knowledge that pupils in Wales should receive. I am referring, too, to one very simple fact: that the design of the curriculum, which is uniform across England and Wales, ignores the fact that we have an additional subject in Wales, to use rather old-fashioned language, which takes up four to five


lessons a week, yet the content of all the other subjects is designed for a curriculum that does not include that additional subject. That is a perfectly good example.

Mr. Richards: The hon. Gentleman must know that the orders for the national curriculum in Wales are designed for Wales and are different from those for England—in Welsh subjects.

Mr. Dafis: I anticipated that that would be said. Of course, we have some variation in the orders in some subjects. We have what is called a Curriculum Cymreig. It is totally inadequate. What we need in Wales is a curriculum based on Welsh values and Welsh ideas and the knowledge that is appropriate to our needs. We need something much more radical than the present curriculum. By the way, we also need to strengthen the powers of ACAC—the Curriculum Assessment Authority for Wales—which is little more than a subsidiary of the London-based body, the Schools Curriculum Assessment Authority.
I think that I have made my point about what the Government's agenda is. The good news is that the Government's agenda is now well understood. The Government have been rumbled good and proper. The people of Wales are enraged by the combination of subterfuge and bullying that now occurs. Matters have reached the stage at which, as the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) mentioned, the Welsh Office was actually afraid—I use that word advisedly—to send a Minister to an important BBC television debate on the state of the nation, which was broadcast on Tuesday. That is an extraordinary state of affairs—the Government were not prepared to be represented in such a debate.
It is infuriating that the situation in Wales is being driven by a Secretary of State who has the democratic mandate of the people of Wokingham only, who, within the Cabinet, has led the drive for public expenditure cuts, and who is now leading the drive for tax cuts before the next election. The Secretary of State is the arch-proponent of competition as a motive force of public sector services, including education. The Secretary of State, of course, has been overwhelmingly rejected by the Welsh electorate.
While that mayhem is occurring, the real education issues in Wales that should be occupying our minds are largely unaddressed. We should debate how to raise school standards in Wales—standards need to be raised—without recourse to the irrelevant market mechanisms that the Government regard as their only instrument. What examination and assessment system is likely to contribute to raising standards in Wales? We need to look carefully at the ideas that have been put forward by the Institute of Welsh Affairs in its recent document on the Welsh education system.
How best can we deliver education for 16 to 18-year-olds within an integrated framework instead of the present mish-mash in which education for that age group is funded from two different sources and in which we have the ridiculous competition between further education colleges and school sixth forms and so on? What structure should there be for a truly Welsh national curriculum? How can we best expand the advantages of Welsh-medium education and knowledge of the Welsh language so that they become available to all?
Those are the real issues. They remain undiscussed because we do not have a democratic forum in which to debate them. Those issues will remain unattended until we have a self-governing Wales that sets its own priorities and is charged with the task of building our own national future. The achievement of a self-governing Wales is now being assisted daily by the Government's opposition to it. Every time they open their mouths, they strengthen the case for Welsh self-government, but the achievement of it must be the central theme of Welsh politics.

Mr. Llew Smith: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) on a remarkable contribution, which I would have expected from him. He represents a constituency with a fine tradition and a fine past. If things go well in the next couple of years, he will also represent a constituency with a fine future. We all look forward to that day.
If the Government had been in office for only the past 15 months, I could understand their refusal to accept responsibility for many of the problems that we face in communities throughout Wales, but they have not been in office for 15 months—they have been in office for 15 years. Because of that, they must accept responsibility not only for the problems but for the devastation that they have inflicted upon our communities.
That devastation shows itself in many ways. It shows itself, for example, in poverty levels in communities such as mine in Blaenau Gwent. I am continually reminded of that devastation. Indeed, I was reminded of it at a meeting last year with the local authority, the Welsh Development Agency, the training and enterprise councils and the Department of Employment. In response to a question that I asked about the wage levels for all job vacancies on one day in Blaenau Gwent, the Department of Employment replied that the average hourly wage rate was just over £3. How would the Minister advise people in that situation on bringing up their families in decency and dignity, with that money? I go one further: I ask him to visit my community in Blaenau Gwent and to tell those people how to bring up their children when faced with hourly wage rates of £3.
That problem is not peculiar to my community; it is happening in working-class communities throughout the United Kingdom. I am sure that all hon. Members could give many examples of wage levels below £3 an hour. My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) gave such an example some weeks ago, when he referred to a vacancy that was advertised in the local jobcentre. It was for a security guard, who was to be paid the grand sum of £1.80 an hour, and who was advised to bring his own guard dog. That is not an isolated example. Such jobs crop up in Blaenau Gwent and in the communities that my hon. Friends represent.
We can see how bad the situation is, but for the unemployed it is even worse. May I allow some of those unemployed people to speak, and try to explain to the House the feelings and frustrations that they experience every day of their lives? I shall do that through a document which some of us produced a year ago, and which contains what some of the families facing the problems of unemployment say.
First we hear from an unemployed couple with one child at home. Father, aged 49, is on invalidity benefit, suffers from spondylitis arthritis and has not worked for 11 years. He said:
The Hoover's broken, it'll cost about £70 to repair so we'll just have to go without. We don't go on holiday—just day trips. We don't go out, we don't drink … We have got into debt, but we learnt from that. If we want something now we sit down and talk about it. You've got to watch every penny … I think we go from day to day. We feel a bit depressed. It affects your whole life—it's monotonous. Some days we get up thinking if only something was different.
Next comes a single parent aged 23, with three children, living on £90.60 a week. She said:
It's a struggle to live. I don't manage on the money. I've got a lot of debt but I get help from my mam and aunties. We never go on holiday.
The next family consists of an unemployed couple with a son who is also unemployed. Father, aged 62, had been unemployed for 10 years. He worked on the buildings for 30 years, often on low pay, and he said:
People like us will get into debt. The social will only give you a loan and then you have to fight for it. We put in for a £70 loan for a cooker and they wanted £8 a week back off us. Well we didn't bother—we couldn't afford to pay that… We went on holiday once—we paid for a caravan—that's in more than 30 years of marriage…I came from Manchester and people who did well gave back to the community. They built the library and created parks but people don't do that now … I'm not optimistic for me, nor for my grandchildren. The chosen few will be getting all the resources and all the others will get left out.
In many ways, that sums up the frustrations felt by the people who face the problems of unemployment and the linked problems of poverty.
We are all aware that we cannot measure unemployment by the statistics provided by the Department of Employment, because it has been proved time after time in the House that those statistics have been fiddled on a regular basis for the past 15 years.
I was interested to read the results of a survey sponsored by the Government, on unemployment in the former coal mining areas of south Wales. The survey said that male adult unemployment stood at 33 per cent. When I put the figures to the Secretary of State some weeks ago, he did not deny them, and agreed that there were still pockets of unemployment. The south Wales coalfield is not a pocket; it is a vast area experiencing vast problems.
Perhaps the Minister would like to comment on one pocket of unemployment in my constituency. In our study of poverty, we interviewed families in one street, and the results were staggering. The survey said:
Of the 58 households, we were able to interview 54, making a total of 91 adults and 86 children. Of those 91 adults, 22 people were working, 60 people were out of work, of whom 13 were single parents, five were retired and four classed themselves as housewives. At least 16 people were suffering from some kind of disability or illness. Of the 86 children, 57 came from homes where no one was working.
In 40 of the homes at least one person was without work, in 32 homes all the adults were out of work, including single parents, and in 15 of the homes at least one member was working.
When I see so many people unemployed, it always serves as a reminder of how crazy the system is. For example, we are going through one of the worst housing crises for decades, yet we have hundreds of thousands of building workers on the dole. Our national health service has been devastated and has long waiting lists, yet there are nurses and other people with tremendous skills on the dole. That is just crazy.
When the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts) was talking about the coal industry, he said that it had been necessary to respond to the problems of overmanning. The response was novel. I have never known anyone else who has responded to the problems of overmanning in an industry by totally wiping out that industry.
When we discuss poverty, we are not talking about unemployment and low wages alone. We are also talking about bad housing, poor health and an environment that is often savage. For example, the 1991 census revealed that 41 per cent. of all households in my constituency have a member suffering from long-term sickness or disability. That compares with a proportion of about 33 per cent. for the rest of Wales. Blaenau Gwent has one of the highest levels in England and Wales.
A Gwent health survey for the years 1985–89 confirms that the most deprived parts of the county experience he worst health. Again that is true of Blaenau Gwent, where deaths from lung cancer, respiratory disease and heart disease are all above the national average, and even the county average.
In the face of such problems, one would have thought that the area health authority for Gwent would be composed of people who had devoted their lives to the health service and knew what was required to make it better and to respond to the health needs of the people in my community. But that is not so. The area health authority is made up of building specialists, roofing experts, former gas purchasing officers and even fruit farmers. But where are the people who have devoted their lives to the national health service? Would not that service have been far better managed over the past decade or more if nurses, ancillary workers, doctors and consumers had had a greater say in its running and the business people out to make quick money had had less of a say?
While I am talking about health, may I ask the Minister when he sums up to explain why student nurses attending the purpose-built centre at Caerleon have had to move to Llandaff hospital, where the facilities are inferior, in order to continue their studies? The costs and the travel time for nurses in my constituency are now much greater, and their examinations are only a couple of months away. That is another loss for Gwent and another disincentive for people contemplating nursing as a career. Will the Minister also explain why those nurses had only five days' notice of the move?
Another way of measuring poverty in an area is to examine its housing stock. The 1991 census shows that housing conditions in the borough of Blaenau Gwent have improved, but remain poor. For example, 2.6 per cent. of pensioner households do not have their own bathroom or inside toilet. More than 40 per cent. of housing was built before 1990, almost all by the private sector, and much of it is in poor repair.
Much of the public housing also has its problems, for two main reasons. First, there is a high percentage of prefabricated concrete council housing. Secondly, most council estates are on hillsides, where the conditions make homes hard to heat and where homes need regular maintenance. Government policies and low income among owner-occupiers have made it increasingly difficult to maintain or improve the quality of the existing housing in the borough. At the same time, homelessness and the demand for homes are growing.
I have heard many Ministers extolling the virtues of a dynamic market economy. If it is a dynamic market economy, why are we faced with the problems that exist in my constituency? Why are millions of people unemployed throughout the United Kingdom? Why are we experiencing the worst housing crisis for decades? Why are the differences in wealth and income growing? Finally, if the economy is so dynamic and successful, why is it that the Government will soon be dumped from office?

Mr. Ted Rowlands: I would have loved to chase at greater length aspects of the Secretary of State's speech, which, in some ways, was extremely revealing. Where did he turn to for his economic and social models? The United States. That was a very interesting choice.
The shape and character of the communities for which the right hon. Gentleman now claims to speak are based on anything but American styles of society. The economic and industrial experience shaped social cohesion and it was often the battle against capitalism which gave the distinctive character to the communities that I and my hon. Friends represent. We are now told that the economic, and presumably social, model to follow is one that has led to a huge and growing underclass and a largely alienated population who are turning more to guns and drugs than to any form of social values. Is that the model that the Secretary of State wants us to follow?
I want to make health the focus of my remarks. It is to the American-style model that the Government have turned to find a health model. We have in the purchaser-contractor-provider system a half-baked version of the American health system. One of the characteristics of the American system is that it is extremely expensive in administrative terms. Everything that I have read suggests that 15 per cent. of the costs in the United States go on the contracting, accounting and administration of the health service.
The NHS has always been inexpensive in administrative terms, with only 3 per cent. to 4 per cent. of costs going on administration. But the figure is now rising progressively. We should be worried that the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to apply American models to our services, and in particular to the health service.
I shall pay the Secretary of State, who is a curious mixture of a man, a compliment. The right hon. Gentleman did something that few Secretaries of State would have done. He came up to see a hospital that was under threat of closure, and talked to the people involved. That was much appreciated. The meeting on that occasion was revealing and illustrative in many ways. The Secretary of State was greeted by the chairman and chief executive of the area health authority and by the accountant unit manager of the district. They were on one side.
On the other side were the people whom I wanted the right hon. Gentleman to see and who represented the views that I was expressing. They included the nurses at Mardy hospital, the people interested in maintaining the fabric of the building, the carers and the patients. The

Secretary of State was hearing two separate voices, and he will have to make up his mind on which he wishes to listen to.
One of the growing consequences of the right hon. Gentleman's reforms—he cannot wash his hands of it—is the increase in the number of men in grey suits. The growing need for accountants, negotiators and contractors is a consequence of the purchaser-provider model that the right hon. Gentleman is trying to impose on the NHS.
I am pragmatic in most respects. I have heard all the arguments, claims and counter-claims about expenditure, and about the huge amounts that the Government claim to have spent on the health service. Like the Secretary of State, I have talked to the people who are trying to deliver the service. In one way, half of what I have been told proves the Government's case. Those involved in the service have said that they never thought about costs, or about the way in which they ought to have utilised their resources in the most efficient manner.
That is certainly a factor in the matter. But while we might accept the diagnosis, the Government's prescription is equally senseless. Top specialists now spend more of their time accounting for the service than delivering it, and more time administrating than administering the service. The hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis) referred to a similar situation in education. In that area also, the prescription is half-baked.
The purchaser-contractor-provider concept is now a problem rather than a solution. While that is bad enough—it is absorbing energies and costs that ought to be delivering front-line services—it is now also distorting clinical judgments and affecting the delivery of the service.
I shall illustrate that in a couple of ways. First, an elderly person who was suffering from advanced lung cancer was admitted to a district hospital, although it was not a hospital that I represent or, indeed, even in Wales. Her family were told that she was terminally ill but not acutely ill, so she should be discharged from the hospital. The semantics of that are interesting.
I can just about understand something like that happening, because the prognosis was that the person did not need the acute facilities of a major district general hospital. But the family were told that they should make arrangements to send the patient to a private nursing home, which would cost about £300 or £400 a week, because she was terminally ill and not acutely ill. Those are the distinctions which are creeping in and which have grown in the service. We are counting costs more than thinking about the quality of service to patients.
This week the Department issued a revealing document as a result of some health ombudsman cases in Leeds. Let me read out what it was necessary to tell the health districts and authorities not to do. The document that the Secretary of State has just published states:
In addition patients who have finished acute treatment or inpatient palliative health care in a hospital or hospice, but whose prognosis is that they are likely to die in the very near future should be able to choose to remain in NHS funded accommodation".
I support that. The very fact that such advice has had to be issued shows that it cannot have been happening.
Terminally ill people, as in the case that I have just described, have been pushed out of hospital. Why? Because of the cost argument and the implications for beds in district general hospitals as opposed to elsewhere.


Fancy having to issue such a document in 1995, and having to tell the people providing the service that that is the guideline that they should follow. It is a powerful illustration of the corrosive influence of contracting and purchasing and of the way in which they are affecting our service.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig) made a powerful speech. It was almost the speech that I would have liked to make on health.
I shall give the Secretary of State another illustration. Let us turn from the Mardy to the Prince Charles hospital. We are trying to save money. Opposition Members understand the need for minding costs and being efficient. We also understand the need for new technology. One of the consequences of new technology in eye surgery is that everyone can be treated on a daily basis. Patients do not need to stay in a hospital, which sounds ideal. But in practice, 80-year-old patients are having to get up at 5 am or 6 am to turn up at the hospital by 8 am for day surgery. They are discharged by lunchtime or early afternoon and told to put drops in their eyes. I am 55 and my hands are shaky enough—I could not put drops in my eyes—so imagine telling 80-year-olds to put drops in their own eyes and to come back the following day and the day after for new dressings. That is the other side of the coin of driving through this contracting and purchasing model, and everyone is conscious of it. Service and the concept of care are becoming less important than cost. We need to strike a balance, but at the moment it is being struck the wrong way.
We can all quote cases. On Saturday, a chap whose shoulder was destroyed in an accident came to see me. It means that he cannot work. He went to the hospital in Newport—not to the Prince Charles in my constituency—and was told that he would have to wait six months for an operation. He cannot go back to work and will become a dependant of the state. He was also told, however, that he could meet the same surgeon and have the same operation within a few days, if he paid his £1,000 or £2,000. That is an illustration of the corrosive influence of the growing queues—people are profiting from protracted pain.
I do not think that the Secretary of State wants that sort of national health service. I have had extensive correspondence with him, his predecessor and with junior Ministers who have dealt with health, including the Under-Secretary of State. I have seen them about more than one patient and told them about my worries and concerns and about the corrosive influence of this evil business of private patient care and the national health service beginning to mix—the so-called green book guidelines and all the rest, and the fact that people can drive a coach and horses through them. That is the sort of worry that we have over a major area of public service and care.
Frankly, there is an alternative model. The Secretary of State has tried to produce one and now I shall. Whether in education or health, in hospitals or schools, unlike Wokingham, London and other suburban areas, we do not have the choice in my constituency. The services are near monopolies. There are only one or two general practitioners whom we can go to and only one hospital. Our children are likely to go to one primary or secondary school. The Government try to use the concept of competition, contracts and that type of model to attack the concept of the monopoly. I understand why, if there is a

monopoly, one must make it very accountable, both in terms of cost and sensitivity to the public, but the Government have got their model wrong. They are trying to graft a competition model on to what, for the vast majority of people, is a monopoly service, whether it be the health service or schools.
Instead of contractors and providers and all these corn-petition models, we should try to adopt another system. I have a couple of recommendations for health. Let us pack up the nonsense of purchaser-contractor-provider. By all means have a powerful, lean and hungry bunch of people, who can act as health auditors. The Government have taught us the power of regulation in gas and electricity, which has delivered power to consumers. I must admit that we were poor supporters of consumers in many curious ways. The regulator is an interesting model to follow. The concept of regulation can be used in both health and education as an alternative to the purchaser-provider model and the pretence of competition, which exists in neither health nor education in most of our communities.
We could also borrow from local management of schools, which has worked in education, devolving responsibility downwards, by putting sisters and matrons back in charge of hospitals. I now meet chief nursing officers whom I have never seen in uniform as they no longer work on hospital wards. I come from a family of sisters and matrons and know that, when sisters and matrons were responsible for the accounts, they were the best and meanest at them. We need neither accountants nor trusts at the top, but responsibility should be devolved back to where it belongs.
Above all, for philosophical reasons we must change the language. Let us talk about a public service and engage people who want to serve. I do not want my health service or hospital run by a chief executive who demands a car, performance-related pay, share options or some kind of bonus in order to activate him into being committed to the show. Patients should not be referred to as clients or customers. Let us put the concept of service back where it belongs—in the service, whether it is education or health. We must get away from the ethos of contracts, money and commercialism driving the system, but by all means retain a tough regime in terms of cost. That is the model which my hon. Friends must promote as a distinct and clear alternative to commercial values, competition and the corrosive influences that the Secretary of State and others have brought into our health and education services.

Mr. Donald Anderson: I suspect that the Secretary of State shares many of the values which my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) has just set out in terms of community and service. Our argument against the Secretary of State is that his ideological impulses push him in the opposite direction and lead to results which are wholly contrary to the values that I believe he espouses.
I join my hon. Friends the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith), and the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis), in paying fulsome tribute to the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig). He comes from the valleys and brings with him


much of the breath of the valleys. The examples that he gave show that he will represent powerfully the constituency of Islwyn.
St. David's day is our annual Welsh day and this is the only opportunity that we have to review the state of the nation. In my brief contribution I shall try to sermonise on two headlines in yesterday's Western Mail. The first may be a little partisan. It says:
Tories in Wales face wipe-out at elections".
The second is a charming little headline which reads:
John Redwood wants the dragon to roar".
With regard to the first headline, the current 12 per cent. support for the Conservative party in Wales illustrates a fundamental contradiction in Welsh politics: although the Labour party has consistently had about half the popular support, for the past 16 years the Conservative party has ruled Wales. Are the Government and Conservative representatives in Wales not embarrassed by that? Have they sought to combat the inevitable frustration and potential alienation of the Welsh people? Are they aware of the sensitivities of Wales? Have they tried to promote community and a sense of Welsh identity? The record is patchy.
On language, the Government have a pretty good record. Here I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts): on the whole, he handled with great sensitivity an issue which could have been explosive in Wales. The package, which continues to evolve, will—for a time, at least—meet the general consensus in Wales.
Overall, however, the Government's record is not good. They have sought in many ways to emasculate the local elected representatives by means of increasingly severe financial constraints and have also sought to attack their personal competence for the work. The Secretary of State well knows the record of the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards), in that respect and I shall not repeat what is well known to Members of the House. The Government have also sought to bypass the elected representatives by creating and encouraging a series of quangos, which are a form of outdoor relief for friends and relations of members of the Conservative party and create disillusion and frustration in Wales.
Nationally, the political maturity of the people of Wales is attacked by the Government by injecting into the argument about devolution—I well understand that there are cogent arguments on both sides—the suggestion that an elected assembly in Cardiff would inevitably, as night follows day, lead to the break-up of the United Kingdom. Surely Wales is more sophisticated than that.

Mr. Rowlands: They used that argument against appointing a Secretary of State for Wales.

Mr. Anderson: Indeed. The right hon. Member for Conwy will shortly visit Catalonia. Does the fact that Catalonia has an elected assembly, which encourages the language there, of itself inevitably entail the break-up of Spain? Has not every one of the motor regions with which Wales is linked—Lombardy, Baden-Wurttemberg, Rhône-Alpes, and so on—at least some focus at regional-national level where people can feel that their problems are tackled more sensitively than at the overall national level? Why must the Conservative party try to

frighten people with a Domesday scenario, saying that the heavens will fall, the Rhine will overflow and the United Kingdom will break up if we, like every other country in Europe, have an elected regional assembly? Surely the argument can be conducted on a more elevated level.
On the theme of Welsh identity, Government policies have eroded the sense of Welsh identity of institutions in Wales in many ways. Let us take the privatised utilities. Some, like Welsh Water, encourage Welsh identity, but others are moving their centres of operation increasingly away from Wales; one thinks of the gas industry in that respect. British Rail, which remains a nationalised undertaking, is moving increasingly away from Wales.
I wish to mention to the Secretary of State one further institution—the traffic commissioners. I hope that the Secretary of State will, in his usual courteous way, seek to inquire into that problem and perhaps respond to me. The Secretary of State may be aware that, five years ago, we fought successfully against the threat to move the traffic commissioners away from Cardiff. I understand that that threat has now reappeared, and I hope that the Secretary of State will try to fight for their retention. Will the Secretary of State inquire into the matter and try to provide an assurance that south Wales will continue to have its own licensing authority and traffic commissioner, notwithstanding what may or may not appear in the review of traffic area offices currently being carried out? Large and small institutions are moving away from Wales. I welcome the arrival of the Chemical bank and other groups in Cardiff, but they do not underpin the financial structure. Such moves are relatively shallow and fragile. I hope that we will seek to develop institutions—both private and public—as a focus of Welsh identity in Cardiff rather than stand by and watch as they are increasingly dragged away from Wales.
Having described the erosion of many institutions, I thought that there had been a great change when I read the headline,
John Redwood wants the dragon to roar".
Had there been a Damascus conversion? Was the Secretary of State donning the cloak of Wales and seeking to promote Welshness? Alas, no—he was making a rather petty attempt at parading his anti-European feelings. The Secretary of State has many virtues. He is intellectually rigorous. As my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney said, he will look at things in person and he has an open-door policy. However, he must recognise that his political views are those of an English nationalist and that his ideology is not consonant with the interests of the Welsh people. It is no wonder that the polls show only 12 per cent. support for the Conservative party in Wales.
The Welsh people sometimes feel like the African leaders of the 1950s who pleaded, "Please, let us make our own mistakes." The Secretary of State is out of touch with our radical traditions and the forces which have helped Wales to develop its own sense of identity. He will always put market-based solutions first, even if they are against the interests of the Welsh people.
One example is the likely announcement about a cardiac unit at Morriston hospital. The Secretary of State will be aware that there are strong suspicions that he has been pushing for the BUPA solution, which constitutes a vote of no confidence in the in-house bid from Morriston hospital. I shall be delighted if the Secretary of State will


confirm that there is no foundation to the rumour about the unit going to BUPA and that the in-house group will win.

Mr. Redwood: I should like to reassure the hon. Gentleman that I am not pushing for any solution. There will be a proper assessment of the relative strengths of each case and the right answer will be reached. I am not trying to bias the assessment in any way and I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will accept my reassurance.

Mr. Anderson: I hear the Secretary of State's reassurance and I hope that that is true.
The Secretary of State was most eloquent about the super-highway and the virtues of computer technology. Of course, Wales cannot be exempt from such technology, but we should not be beguiled when the fact is that in many ways computers can destroy jobs.
The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency in Morriston announced last year that the Government's expenditure of £12 million on a new computer would mean the loss of 700 jobs in an area of high unemployment over a two-year period. That sector is not subject to competitive pressure and the decision does not make sense. The Secretary of State must be aware that a job means a personal identity for many individuals. I am not arguing for inefficiency, but the Government can help to provide identities for people by creating new jobs in depressed areas.
Finally, I make an appeal to the Secretary of State on the subject of drugs. He has been most eloquent about the drug menace and the evil men behind it. However, a key project in my county—the west Glamorgan drug prevention unit—is to close this month. The Home Office has withdrawn funding and the people there are already dispersed. In the current financial year the Government are spending less than £400 million on drug prevention. Yet the Secretary of State's only response—again, he will correct me if I am wrong—was that on 20 October last year he announced with a flourish that he would he establishing a small new team of officials to take practical steps for prevention and cure. My understanding from experts in west Glamorgan is that the rest is silence and there has been no evidence of any action on behalf of that group. Experts in the field tell me that nothing has been heard of it; yet one knows the extent to which drugs can lead to crime and destroy lives. On the face of it, it seems to be a example in which saving public money has been put ahead of the social needs of the country.
Finally, what is the audit of Wales on this annual Welsh day? Clearly the Government are divided, and in many ways they are alien to the people of Wales. They are insensitive to Welsh needs and that insensitivity leads to frustration and impotent anger on the part of our people. The Government are not a good model for democracy. Yes, the dragon will indeed roar: it will roar at the next election, both within Wales and outside, and I am confident that those poll findings or something like them will be confirmed.

Mr. Alan W. Williams: I shall be brief as I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) wishes to wind up for the Opposition. I wish to make a few comments about unemployment in my constituency.
Earlier this week, an announcement was made by the Ministry of Defence about Pendine. We are delighted that it has been reprieved and we thank the Welsh Office for lobbying on our behalf. Virtually all the work at Pencline will continue, but with a very much reduced work force. The current 340 jobs will be reduced to 110, partly because of a slim-down and partly due to some of facilities at the port being used to support the work there. There could be job losses of around 200 at Pendine over the next two years.
A Welsh Office press release issued yesterday promised to examine the possibility of Pendine becoming part of the west Wales task force area. I hope very much that when the discussions are followed through Pendine will become part of that initiative and so will Whitland, which is adjacent and where 150 jobs were lost last November. We also want extra finance because 400 jobs have been lost in an area where it is impossible to replace them.
My second point is about Capel Hendre near Ammanford. The Amman valley is an unemployment black spot with something like 15 or 20 per cent. unemployment in many villages. We now have an excellent industrial estate at Capel Hendre, thanks to the Welsh Office, the Welsh Development Agency and Dinefwr borough council. We now want to attract a big inward investor bringing something like 500 jobs. I make a plea to the Welsh Office to carry on its good work at Capel Hendre and to find a customer for that site to create 500 jobs to revive the Amman valley in my constituency.

Mr. Rhodri Morgan: Let me start, as several of my hon. Friends and the Secretary of State have already done, by complimenting my hon. Friend the new Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), although he is not in his place at the moment, on an outstanding maiden speech. Let me also repeat the kind and courteous references that he made to his predecessor, a personal friend of mine and our party leader for nine years from 1983 to 1992. I was particularly pleased to hear my hon. Friend following a proud Gwent tradition by laying so much emphasis on the national health service, as did many Opposition speakers, particularly my hon. Friends the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) and for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson).
The speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn, however, has to take pride of place tonight. Not only was it a very good speech, but my hon. Friend won a unique by-election victory. The Government percentage of the vote at that by-election was probably below the ruling interest rate. That record may stand for some time.
My hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn spoke about the important issue of GP fundholders, the loose cannons in the system. We have an estimate that about £7 million of fundholders' so-called savings are currently sloshing around in the national health service. It is up to the fundholders to decide what to do with that money, whether to expand their premises, or so on.
It is doubtful whether that money represents savings because it is generally produced by fundholders prescribing cheaper drugs for their patients. That is fair enough, but non-fundholders are also prescribing cheaper drugs and they are not allowed to keep the savings from that. The degree to which fundholders are getting on with the job of prescribing cheaper drugs is no greater than that


of non-fundholders, but fundholders are allowed to keep the money, which is now a large sum. According to Welsh Office figures, it was £4.7 million last year and it is probably about £7 million this year. That is a dangerous new feature and we need to get hold of it. I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Islwyn mentioned that issue.
As good parliamentarians we need to be sure that we know what is happening to that £7 million that is sloshing around the system. Ministers should possibly take more responsibility for finding out what is happening to that money. The Secretary of State's speech did not contain a great deal about health, although Opposition speakers tended to emphasise it. There has been some reference to waiting times and I think that the hon. Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney) said that waiting times had come down. That is contradicted by an article in this morning's Western Mail which was based on the publication yesterday of waiting times information produced by the Secretary of State's Department.
We are concerned about those figures because the Government are giving their Back Benchers the impression that waiting times are going down. We are at a critical moment because in four and a half weeks, on 1 April, the Welsh health service will be put to the test of last year's initiatives by the Secretary of State, by which he caused all consultants to offer a maximum waiting time of six months for a first out-patient consultation. That is what the right hon. Gentleman said last year, but now that we are getting close to 1 April, the message seems to be slightly different.
It seems that some consultants in Wales are already booked up to the year 2000. That applies especially in long-wait specialties such as orthopaedics and there are out-patient waiting times for consultations of more than two, three or four years. In at least one case that I am aware of in south Glamorgan, the waiting time is more than five years. Anyone who gets an appointment now will keep it in the new millennium. However, four weeks from now we shall be expected to believe that the maximum will be six months.
As I have said, booking dates now are for the year 2000. How we can get from that to a booking date in October this year for anybody coming into the system on 1 April I do not know. It is a bit of a mystery to us all. What is to be done is partially revealed in the waiting times initiative which lists all the consultants and the length of their waiting times. Under the heading "Patients choice" the document states:
This bulletin does not include details of consultants who are unable to meet the existing patients charter guarantees on maximum waiting time.

Mr. Rowlands: How many are there?

Mr. Morgan: Of those published, 29 consultants are listed in only two specialty areas, orthopaedics and ophthalmics. Those 29 consultants have waiting times of two years for treatment and the waiting time for 12 or 13 consultants for a first out-patient consultation is more than two years. The Government reckon that in four weeks that waiting time will be down to six months. They have left out all those whose waiting times are longer than that. They have simply taken the long-wait consultants out of the system. They do not publish their names so that we

do not know that the guarantee is a load of rubbish. The consequence of the Secretary of State's action is that it will pay every health authority in Wales to have a duff consultant in each specialty. He will have a short waiting list so that they will be able to say, "We have met the patient minimum time guarantee because this consultant"—whom nobody wants—"can be offered in less than 26 weeks." The consultants whom everyone wants to see still have waiting lists of two, three, four and, in one or two cases, five years plus. That is the problem that everyone has when seeking some credibility in the Secretary of State's alleged guarantee of a two-year waiting time.

Mr. Redwood: Is the hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that a successful and popular consultant should have to work even longer hours so that he is available more rapidly? Surely the hon. Gentleman understands that the guarantee is that, for every patient, there is a consultant of a decent standard, who is capable of seeing that patient and of giving him the necessary treatment. It is never possible to say that one specific consultant will always be available next week.

Mr. Morgan: The Secretary of State confirms my hypothesis that for every half dozen consultants in a specialty in a major hospital, there will be one tail-end Charlie or Charlotte, who is not a popular consultant and who will therefore have a short waiting list. The average waiting list will not differ from what it is today—104, 150 or 300 weeks. The position will not be any different, despite the sales pitch that the Secretary of State put on it. The Secretary of State has that problem. It is no wonder that he did not touch on the state of the health service in his speech.
Nor, strangely enough, did the Secretary of State do much in the way of an attack on devolution, which we had half expected. We did hear a weak, half-hearted attack on devolution by the right hon. Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts). He did not mention the dreaded words, "the Ulster framework document", but perhaps good reasons exist for that. That document contains proposals for a non-tax-raising, devolved assembly that covers a wide range of central Government powers—everything barring defence, central Exchequer tax-raising powers and foreign policy. Those proposals offer a wide range of devolved powers, which are well beyond what has been proposed by Opposition Members in relation to Wales and to Scotland.
In general, all we heard were half-hearted suggestions that Labour was interested in breaking up the United Kingdom, but nothing could be further from the truth. No amount of wriggling by the Government can avoid millions of people in Wales drawing the conclusion that, if such proposals are good enough for Ulster, they are good enough for Wales.
Given the choice in Wales between Secretaries of State from Worcester, from Wirral, West or from Wokingham and a body that will be accountable to the people of Wales, no doubt exists as to which option the people of Wales would choose. It must be said of the Secretary of State, and I say it with great courtesy, kindness and respect, that he is our trump card in arguing for a Welsh Assembly. If he wants to know why, he should read his speech in Hansard tomorrow. Most people in Wales will have concluded that he is not from the same planet as them. It is no wonder that the Conservative party lost its


deposit in Islwyn or that the Secretary of State sought solace 3,000 miles away in the rantings and ravings of Newt Gingrich, the Republican House of Representatives Speaker.
I agree with the right hon. Member for Conwy, who said about Newt Gingrich and the Secretary of State's reference to him, "What's it got to do with Wales?" He was right about that. I enjoy finding things on which we agree. Newt Gingrich is a friend of the shock jocks, the rednecks and the roughnecks. I never thought that "John Redwood" would become "shock jock redneck".
As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, not satisfied with moving 3,000 miles away, the Secretary of State then moved off into cyberspace and tried to interest us all in the idea of Super-JANET suddenly landing in Cardiff bay, possibly to meet SuperTed. Many people, however, will find his alternating between cyberspeak and penny-in-the-slot, pseudo-philosophical, right-wing, mid-Atlantic, think-tank gibberish extremely unappealing. That was not what people in Wales wanted to hear. It was like a trainee accountant on crack.
I think that it is fair to say that the Secretary of State realises that what people in Wales are interested in is why, after 16 years of Conservative Government, their incomes are still 15 per cent. lower than the average income in the UK, whether one measures it by family expenditure or by gross domestic product. Incomes were 15 per cent. behind in 1979. Despite the so-called economic miracle, they are still 15 per cent. behind and they are falling, according to the latest statistics. That is the bottom line. The Secretary of State was very interested in the bottom line in his previous careers in merchant banking, industry and the City. For the people of Wales, the bottom line is: why are they still so far behind?
Why is there talk of an economic miracle when it is difficult to find one in the streets of Wales? The Secretary of State goes in for philosophical rantings that are meant to appeal primarily to audiences in the home counties and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East said, possibly to a kind of English nationalist audience.
In any event, the Secretary of State's rantings are certainly part of the battle for the leadership of the Tory party after the Government's defeat at the next election. They are meant to state his position and are nothing to do with Wales. They are grandstanding for the readers of The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph, and the Daily Mail—the Murdoch, Conrad Black and Rothermere newspapers. They are the audience that he is trying to reach and he is using us as a way of doing so. If he did not have Cabinet status, he would not be able to make such speeches or get noticed. It is a case of "Welsh Cabinet Secretary Makes Major Attack on Single Parents in St. Melions". His comments are tuned up to be a great philosophical statement about the need for community and family.
The same happened with the popular schools initiative. It was meant not to go down well in Wales but to appeal to an audience that reads the right-wing newspapers. The Secretary of State is positioning himself and getting ready for the future battle for the leadership of the Tory party. However, such issues are not of great interest to us in Wales.
The Secretary of State does not have to go very far to find out why his party is so far behind in the polls. It is because we are so far behind in the economic stakes and

because he is not on the same wavelength as the people of Wales, who overwhelmingly support the Labour party, not him.

Mr. Ron Davies: We have a lead of 54 per cent.

Mr. Morgan: My hon. Friend refers to the latest opinion poll, which confirms what most of us know simply by living in Wales. I am sure that the Secretary of State knows that to be the case from the blank faces of Welsh audiences when he starts making one of his philosophical speeches. That is why he makes many of his speeches not only in his constituency of Wokingham but in Reading, in Woking, in Guildford and in Winchester, which are so similar in their social character. Speaking in such places makes it easier for him to get his press releases through on the Friday night drop to the newsrooms of The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph. He can then develop his obsession and appear on "The World at One" and the other heavy political Sunday programmes to prove his philosophical right-wing credentials.
The hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) said earlier that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had been appointed under a defective system. If there were a Welsh Assembly and, apparently, a different system, how would the Secretary of State be appointed?

Mr. Morgan: I am grateful to the Minister for bringing up that point. It is eight years since the people of Wales had a Secretary of State who represented a Welsh constituency. They have had Secretaries of State who represented Worcester and Wirral, West and the present Secretary of State represents Wokingham. They have not been represented by the right hon. Member for Conwy. It was a shock to the system for all of us that he was missed out—perhaps it was because his constituency does not begin with the letter "W". In any event, it was awful for the people of Wales to realise that they were not going to have a Conservative Secretary of State who represented a Welsh constituency. Perhaps the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Clwyd, North-West (Mr. Richards), thinks that he is still in with a chance and can alter that, but if he does not realise that the system is defective, he has another think coming. An overwhelming proportion-90 per cent.—of the people of Wales acknowledge that the system is defective.
Many of us were amazed at the extent to which the Secretary of State quoted Newt Gingrich as the inspiration for his philosophy. One could say that he wants to station himself as mid-Atlantic, right-wing American and anti-European. However, I can tell my parliamentary colleagues that that is all a bit of a con. In fact, he has a secret second life as a pro-European. I have here a pamphlet that refers to him as "European Redwood". That is almost a contradiction in terms. It is like referring to the sincerity of the Home Secretary, or to the Prime Minister's authority. What are we being told? It could be said that the Secretary of State has two junior Ministers who are two planks—obviously, I shall not use the word "short" in this context—and it could certainly be said that "European Redwood" goes against the grain.
I raise the matter only because the Secretary of State raised it himself. He had a wonderful photo-opportunity down in Dyffryn gardens, planting a seedling that will still be there in 3,000 years—by which time the Conservatives might have gained more than 5 per cent. of the vote in


valleys by-elections. I must tell the Secretary of State, however, that although that seedling was planted on Tuesday, an army of death watch beetles came down from Islwyn on Wednesday and ate it.
The Secretary of State pointed out that St. David was a successful missionary for Christian values many centuries ago. I can only tell him that he himself is the most unsuccessful missionary for Newt Gingrich's values who could be imagined. We are talking of a man in America who does not believe in the welfare state or in any public involvement in the health care system. The Secretary of State, however, tells us that he wants to sell those ideas and still make us believe that the national health service is safe in his hands.
If the Secretary of State wants us to believe that, he had better not keep talking the language of Newt Gingrich to the people of Wales or in the House of Commons. If he does, the people of Wales will reject him and his party at the next election, and at every by-election before that, as they have done consistently ever since the secret ballot was introduced.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Mr. Gwilym Jones): I appreciate the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) about the fact that we may have to do something different, or we shall risk defeat in the next election. I take that very much to heart. We always appreciate a wind-up from the hon. Gentleman. It is a wind-up in every sense of the term: there may be no substance in it, but it is invariably hugely entertaining.
This is our traditional Welsh day debate. It is traditional in the best sense. There has been many a repetition: comments that have always been made are trotted out once more. I must, however, express my pleasure at the fact that nearly all Opposition Members welcomed some of what they heard—especially what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said about his aims for communications. The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery (Mr. Carlile) went further, welcoming various other developments. I hope to touch on those later. The hon. Member for Carmarthen (Mr. Williams) acknowledged the efforts of all of us to encourage the process at Pendine; I thank him for that.
It has been a traditional debate. Reading the report of last year's debate, I noticed that the result of an opinion poll had just been announced then as well, and that the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) trumpeted that as our worst-ever opinion poll result. [HON. MEMBERS: "This one is worse."] No; the latest opinion poll result is better. It shows an improvement for us of some 10 per cent. I should be consoled by that if I am worried about the poll.
The most traditional feature of our Welsh day debates, however, is the increasing number of hon. Members who try to tempt the hon. Member for Caerphilly to enunciate a policy, usually with the least possible success. The most successful of them today was my right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy (Sir W. Roberts), who, by means of a series of interventions, dragged out more policy from the hon. Gentleman than he had revealed in his 33-minute speech.
That, too, is traditional. I note that last year the hon. Member for Caerphilly spoke for 32 minutes. A minute before the end of his speech, the hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis) asked him to say something about a policy. The hon. Gentleman probably remembers the response that he received as well as I do. The hon. Member for Caerphilly said:
I thought that the hon. Gentleman was going to invite me to attack my own party. I can assure him that I have enough friends without having to launch an attack on my colleagues."—[Official Report, 3 March 1994; Vol. 238, c. 1111.]
That was the hon. Gentleman's sole contribution to policy last year, and he almost managed to put his consistent duck on the record this year.
This has been a traditional debate in other ways as well. We have had rant, lament and a statesmanlike—elder statesmanlike—contribution from my right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy. We also heard a maiden speech from the hon. Member for Islwyn (Mr. Touhig), who is now returning to his place.
I have a fellow feeling with the hon. Member for Islwyn. I have the closest of connections with Crosskeys in his constituency and with other parts of the western valley. I readily appreciate what he said about his constituents wanting the best for their children and their grandchildren, especially when he said that they want jobs and not benefits. Those are the people of Islwyn whom I know as well as he.
Having listened to the hon. Gentleman, I felt that in him we had a most appropriate hon. Member to follow in his predecessor's footsteps. I reject the spurious calculations of the hon. Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn), which somehow suggested that the hon. Member for Islwyn had not been elected. I am sure that the hon. Member for Newport, West does want to pursue that.
The hon. Member for Islwyn devoted his speech to health. My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Sweeney) also made significant reference to health, but he dwelt on the facts such as the considerable increase in the number of patients being treated by the national health service in Wales. There is not only a dramatic increase in the number of patients treated, but a most marked increase in day surgery. The figures do not convey the lesser trauma involved in the treatment of patients under day surgery and how they are able to return home to their families far more quickly.
Good progress is being made on introducing the new total waiting times patient charter guarantee in April. Health authorities and GP fundholders are reporting shorter waiting lists and waiting times. The reduction in out-patient waiting lists in the last three months of 1994—more than 6 per cent.—was especially striking. The latest forecasts of health authorities and GP fundholders show that very few out-patients will wait longer than a year and virtually no in-patients or day cases will wait longer than 18 months by the beginning of April. I expect further progress early in 1995–96—the second year of the three-year waiting time initiative.

Mr. Rowlands: Time and again our constituents see a consultant and are told that they cannot be seen for another six months, yet when they pay the same consultant some money they are treated within a day or two. Does the Minister find that as offensive as we do?

Mr. Jones: As the hon. Gentleman knows, he and I have met to discuss such problems and I fully share his


apprehensions of any improper queue jumping through the use of national health service facilities. Like the hon. Gentleman, I hope that any such case can be tracked down and tackled properly.
The hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) mentioned cardiac treatment in Morriston. Hon. Members will know that there has been considerable interest in our development programme for specialist cardiac treatment, which is centred around the University hospital of Wales. I am delighted to announce that, following detailed evaluation, a new cardiac unit is to be developed by Morriston hospital NHS trust. That has been a difficult decision because we had received a number of innovative proposals. We are most grateful to all those who contributed. The Morriston team's proposal will provide top quality as well as offering the best value for money. It will be fully funded by the Welsh Office. We are convinced that the right option for the people of Wales has been chosen.
The Government attach the highest priority to the completion of the investment programme, which is making a significant contribution to the fight against cardiovascular disease. I expect everyone involved to co-operate in ensuring that the centre is completed as soon as possible.

Mr. Donald Anderson: I thank the Minister for that announcement. There will be great delight in west Glamorgan that the flirtation with the private sector has been overruled and that there has been a vote of confidence in the in-house bid.

Mr. Jones: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his thanks. I think that he understands that a decision has been made on the best application. I believe that the Government and Opposition Members, particularly the hon. Members for Islwyn and for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr. Rowlands) are united in wanting to see the NHS in Wales continuing to go forward, continuing to expand and continuing to improve.
The hon. Member for Swansea, East also mentioned drug abuse and prevention. In England, a Green Paper on drug abuse has just been published. It was said that Wales and Northern Ireland would produce their own strategies. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are drafting and aim to produce a consultation document very soon. That is in addition to my right hon. Friend's announcement on 19 October that he would establish a Welsh drug and alcohol unit which will be responsible for implementing the strategy which is now being developed.
The hon. and learned Member for Montgomery referred to the funding and quality of community care. My right hon. Friend was able to tell him about the extra sums that have already been provided. We intend to go further than that: in 1996–97, we will add a further £25 million and in 1997–98 we will add an additional £19 million on top of that. The annual figure will then be an additional sum of almost £170 million.
The closest attention is being paid to how that money is being used, not least by the carers who can see the situation at the sharp end. Very possibly the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery went to meet the carers, as I did, at their function in the House last week. I can understand their calls for the money to be ring-fenced in Wales as it is in England.
However, that money is not the full extent of the financial support that we provide. The Welsh Office also has grant schemes which amount to £4.5 million in the current year for projects for older people and those with disabilities. In addition, total funding for the mental illness strategy is £5.5 million this year. That includes £1.1 million to local authorities across Wales.
Funding in that regard is used by local authorities to offer practical support for individuals with mental health problems and it includes the enhancement of day care services and facilities, night time cover, supported accommodation and social worker posts for resettlement teams. In addition, there is our much respected mental handicap strategy the total funding for which this year is almost £56 million, almost £49 million of which goes to local authorities across Wales. That encourages the development of new patterns of local community-based care with increased choice for better quality and more independent lives for individuals.
With regard to the importance of resettlement, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I are at one with the hon. and learned Member for Montgomery in the belief that care should be right for each individual. We will need a range of forms of care, involving some forms which have already been developed and some that we will probably need to develop further. I had an opportunity to visit the charity RESCARE in Manchester last year when I had responsibility for such matters. I saw the imaginative way in which it was developing slightly larger homes than we are at present used to. We must try to do all that we can to ensure that each individual has the right care.
The right hon. Member for Llanelli (Mr. Davies) asked what the Government have done for Llanelli. I must point out that, under the strategic development scheme this year, we are providing no less than £1.25 million for servicing new industrial land, commercial renewal grants, pedestrianisation and improvements to the centre to complement the new retail development. There is also the valleys private finance initiative. The local authority identified the Llanelli development as the key economic development opportunity and we are marketing it aggressively together with the Welsh Development Agency and the local authority.
The hon. Members for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Smith) and for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers), in interventions, expressed readily understandable feelings about excessive unemployment in the valleys. However, I totally reject the point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda when he suggested that spite had motivated the Government's approach towards the coal industry.
We all have to face up to the realities of life, but no Government seek to create unemployment in coal or any other industry and certainly not for ridiculous motives such as spite. That would be as incorrect and as futile as to suggest that Lord Callaghan sought for similar reasons to close down Eastmoor steel works in Cardiff or that the former right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent, Michael Foot, closed down the Ebbw Vale steel works. It would


be just as ridiculous for the hon. Member for Rhondda to suggest that Michael Foot was acting as someone's agent in that regard—

Mr. Touhig: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Jones: Well, I fear that I am running out of time. However, as the hon. Gentleman made his maiden speech today, I will give way to him.

Mr. Touhig: I believe that the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Hamilton) made remarks about getting his own back on Wales by closing the pits and changing all the constituencies. I wrote to him during the Islwyn by-election, but I have yet to receive a reply.

Mr. Jones: Knowing my hon. Friend, he will not be shy about giving the hon. Gentleman a reply. I will leave him to do that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan stressed the need for good road links. I readily appreciate his comment about South Glamorgan council and a proper updated link to Cardiff airport. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has today updated his plans for future improvements to the trunk road network. Fifteen schemes totalling £267 million are programmed to start before April 1998, improving nearly 47 miles of road. The plans take forward the strategy set out in "Roads in Wales: 1994 Review".
Resources will continue to be focused on the major strategic routes: the A55, the M4, and the A465. We attach great priority to the Heads of the Valley road, and we have consulted on route options for dualling between Abergavenny and Hirwaun. It is intended to publish a preferred route by midsummer. Plans for scheme starts next year include the A40 Whitland bypass, the M4 Magor-Coldra widening, the A550 Deeside park interchange, the A40 Fishguard western bypass, and the A470 Lledr valley stage 1.
We continue to attach high priority to ensuring that roads in sensitive areas are managed in such a way as to protect the beautiful environment of Wales. We will shortly commission a study of the A5 on the mainland to help to determine how best to ensure that it does not develop in ways that encourage through traffic. We wish to see a logical and cohesive strategy developed for the future management of that section of trunk road that takes full account of the beauty of Snowdonia and the need to preserve it for future generations.
The hon. Member for Ceredigion and Pembroke, North (Mr. Dafis) will be interested in the matter of St. Dogmaels, which I visited with him during the summer recess. I can now announce that supplementary credit approval of up to £500,000 will be issued to assist Preseli Pembrokeshire district council in meeting additional costs that it has sustained relating to its response to the St. Dogmaels landslide and the investigations that it has commissioned into its mechanism and possible corrective measures. That is in addition to assistance towards the cost of proposed surface drainage works eligible for grant aid under the Land Drainage Act 1991, which are due to be undertaken over the next two years. I am writing to the local authority to provide it with full details of that assistance.
We have inevitably heard many references to the vexed question of devolution. Perhaps it should more properly he referred to as centralisation; taking powers from local authorities in Wales and giving them to a Welsh Assembly—the ultimate quango. [Interruption.] Of course, Opposition Members may crow at the results of the BBC Wales-Western Mail opinion survey, which was published yesterday. The poll purports to show 47 per cent. of those surveyed in favour of some form of assembly for Wales. Opposition Members will say that that is a huge swing in favour of an assembly.
We all know that polls taken in isolation produce unreliable results. We must remember that last year's opinion poll involved a sample of 1,500. This year's poll involved a sample of 521. Thirty-five per cent. were highlighted as wanting an assembly that was independent of Westminster. That means 86 people—that is all. How representative is that?
Have Opposition Members forgotten the real test of opinion, when 1.2 million people voted on 1 March 1979? The results were clear then. It was not a case of 86 people out of a total of 521. True, almost 250,000 people voted in favour of an assembly, but almost 1 million decisively rejected it. That is a far more reliable test of public opinion.

Mr. Flynn: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Jones: No, I cannot give way.
At least we have a policy from Opposition. They say that, some time, they will define what sort of assembly they will put forward. It is their only positive contribution. It is a job-creating policy, is it not? At least it is meant to be a job-creating policy for the old dinosaurs of the Labour party whom they mean to accommodate in a Welsh Assembly. That will be the only job-creating aspect of it.

Mr. Morgan: Will the Minister give his views of the Ulster framework document proposals for a devolved assembly to Northern Ireland?

Mr. Jones: Not in the time available.
The proposed Welsh Assembly will be a home for the old dinosaurs of the Labour party—rewards for their records of non-achievement. They are just like the Simpsons on Channel 4—underachievers, and proud of it. Those who failed to get into this place or into the European Assembly would be sent to it.

Mr. Win Griffiths: The ultimate quango.

Mr. Jones: Yes, it is the ultimate quango. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Conwy said, we would be back to the bad old days—every quango stuffed with Labour placemen. Do we not recollect that the 30-odd members of the Trades Union Congress shared 140 quangos between them—about four per head? That is not bad going, but that is the way things were.
The assembly is the Labour party's latest answer, and it is the only job creation proposal that the Labour party has, unless we want to take in the long list of crazy proposals that my right hon. Friend read out in his speech. We noticed that again there was no answer from the hon. Member for Caerphilly to the question whether he would have all those regional development banks, Faraday centres, defence diversification agencies, general teaching


councils and all the rest of the loony list that is being dragged out. It is all job creation for the boys—or rather, for the boyos.

It being Ten o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

DEREGULATION

Ordered,
That Mr. Peter Atkinson, Mr. Roger Berry, Mr. Michael Brown, Judith Church, Mr. Anthony Coombs, Mr. David Evans, Mr. Barry Field, Mr. Neil Gerrard, Mr. John Gunnell, Mr. Alan Keen, Mr. Patrick Nicholls, Mr. Peter L. Pike, Mr. Gordon Prentice, Mr. Graham Riddick, Mr. William Ross, Mr. Allan Stewart, Mr. John Sykes and Dr Ian Twinn be members of the Deregulation Committee.—[Mr. Wells.]

PUBLIC ACCOUNTS

Ordered,
That Sir David Mitchell be discharged from the Committee of Public Accounts and Mr. Tim Smith be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Wells.]

PROCEDURE

Ordered,
That Mr. Gordon McMaster be discharged from the Select Committee on Procedure and Mr. Peter L. Pike be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Wells.]

PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER FOR ADMINISTRATION

Ordered,
That Mr. Mike Watson be discharged from the Select Committee on the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration and Mr. Michael Connarty be added to the Committee.—[Mr. Wells.]

Rugby Cement Works

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Wells.]

10 pm

Sir Anthony Grant: The subject of the debate is of great importance to my constituents, and I know that it is also important to my hon. Friends the Members for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) and for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan), both of whom have taken a keen interest in it on behalf of their constituents. The subject is also of concern to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mrs. Campbell), whom I see here tonight.
The consequences of burning secondary liquid fuels, and indeed of burning conventional fuels, need to be considered calmly and rationally. It is useless to consider them in an hysterical manner; the last thing that one wants to do over such an issue is to cause panic in an area.
Rugby Cement works is an efficient industrial plant long established in the village of Barrington in my constituency. When it was first built in the late 1920s, it was regarded as manna from heaven by the unemployed and by the impoverished farms in the region. Indeed, many of the families of those who were first employed there and given relief are still employed there now. The firm therefore provides valuable employment, and also produces a vital material for housing and for the construction industry in general.
Rugby Cement is environmentally conscious, and has planted many trees in the area. It has always been open with the community, the people who live in the neighbourhood. Happily, I can say that, in its 70 years in Cambridgeshire, there has been no evidence to link its activities in any way with ill health in the local communities.
About four years ago, during the recession, when conditions were extremely competitive, Rugby Cement became aware of the potential use of secondary liquid fuels as substitutes for coal and petroleum coke—solid fuels that have historically been used in the process. The company studied that use in the places where it was commonly accepted practice—Germany, France, the United States, Belgium and Scandinavia; it sought the advice of risk assessors, consultants, the Health and Safety Executive, Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution, the National Rivers Authority and the fire brigades; and it came to the conclusion that secondary liquid fuels—SLFs, as they are known—could safely be burnt in its cement kilns.
Various trials took place, starting in 1993. The company submitted the results to Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution, which considered them and said that the activity was safe within the limits set. Nevertheless, the issue remains one of considerable concern to the people in the villages in the area concerned. Those include Barrington itself, Harston, Haslingfield, Harlton, Hauxston and Trumpington.

Mrs. Anne Campbell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although we have three licensed hazardous waste incinerators in the UK, the cement kilns can undercut them, since the emission limit for the cement


industry is considerably less stringent? Does he further agree that the cement industry is becoming the UK's hazardous waste disposal industry?

Sir Anthony Grant: I do not agree with the hon. Lady's second point, but I shall be raising the other matter to which she referred later in my speech. I understand the hon. Lady's concern, because the prevailing winds from Barrington go up towards Cambridge. I hope that Cambridge city will be immune because I happen to live there, and the last thing I want is to be affected.
The parish council of Barrington—the site of the cement works—has gone into the matter with care, and engaged experts. They came to some conclusions, to which I shall refer. They said that the level of dioxin measured in the trials was comfortably below the European limit, and that heavy metals emissions were within Euro-limits also. The matter has also been considered by Cambridgeshire county council and, in particular, by South Cambridgeshire district council, which is more directly involved.
South Cambridgeshire held a debate on the subject, and said that it was going to hold a watching brief
to ensure that pollution from SLF firing should not exceed that permitted during the burning of traditional fuels at Rugby Cement, Barrington".
The council further expressed the view that
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution should be made aware of the Council's concern … and of the further particular concern expressed by Committee at the possible increase in heavy metals and dioxins in emissions".
Everyone in the area is taking the matter seriously.
According to the Minister of State—with whom I have corresponded for the past year—in a letter sent to me on 8 February, the results of the test
indicated that, compared with conventional fuel burning, the use of SLF resulted in a decrease in the emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter"—
I call that dust in my simple language—
and HCI and no significant difference between stack emissions of dioxin and heavy metals. Emissions of dioxin and heavy metals were within the limits set for incineration plants".
Further trials are taking place, but Rugby Cement has applied to Her Majesty's inspectorate to vary the cement process authorised and to allow the permanent use of SLF up to 25 per cent. of calorific value. There is a consultation period of 42 days, in which people can make their views felt and express their objections.
The trouble with the subject is that there is a mass of technical detail which can be resolved only by experts. I am not an expert. I do not believe—with great respect—that the Minister is an expert, and I do not think that you are an expert, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Nevertheless, anxieties do exist in my constituency and in those of my hon. Friends who are also deeply concerned about the matter.
The main anxieties revolve around health. What is the effect of the emissions on health, and children's health in particular? Are there any long-term effects? I can understand that my hon. Friend the Minister may wish to leave the matter with the Department of Health. If he says that this is a matter on which he would wish to take advice from the Secretary of State for Health or a Minister from the Department, I will completely understand. I hope, however, that the point will be taken on board.
I know enough about the matter to know that dioxins and heavy metals are very nasty things indeed. They are linked with cancer. Dioxin also results from smoking, and is found in the transport and steel industries, to name but a few, so it is not something that one can stop entirely without closing down some activities in our society.
The question that I must put to the Minister is, what are the safe levels? We are told that all the activities are within the safety limits, but can he assure us that that is correct? Secondly, are the tests that are being considered by Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution adequate, or should they be more stringent? Are the inspectors properly qualified and have they the resources to deal with the tests? Will atmospheric tests be conducted in the various areas—there is concern about that? Most important of all, will monitoring of the atmosphere continue?

Mr. Nigel Evans: Does my hon Friend accept that the public have genuine fears, and have a right to know that what comes from the stacks is environmentally safe? Does he also accept that there is an onus on cement firms to ensure that the plumes coming from the stacks do not ground, and an onus on Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution to ensure that that does not happen?

Sir Anthony Grant: Yes, I agree with all that, and I think that Rugby Cement would agree, and would be anxious to comply with that obligation.
Has the inspectorate sufficient qualified staff? It has been suggested in Bedford—the area in which it carries out the tests—that that is not so. Will the Minister check, and clarify the position? If the inspectorate does not have the necessary resources, as some of the inspectors in Bedford seem to imply, will he try to get them, even if he has to bully the Treasury about it? If he is satisfied that the inspectors have the resources, will he tell them to get on with the job or, if they cannot do it, get them out and get in someone who can do it properly?
The organisation Friends of the Earth, with which hon Members will be familiar, has also expressed concern to me. It has gone into the matter with a great deal of care and states:
there is totally inadequate evidence to prove that emissions from cement kilns burning hazardous waste in the short or the long term will not have a deleterious impact on the health of local residents".
Equally, one could argue that there is totally inadequate evidence to prove that the emissions will have a deleterious impact on health in the long term, so that argument is as broad as it is long.
Friends of the Earth also complained that
the frequency and sufficiency of monitoring by both the companies and HMIP is open to doubt.
Perhaps the Minister can reassure us about that. It also points out:
the classification of such hazardous waste as 'fuel' brings the whole regulatory system into disrepute.
That is a very stern criticism, but it leads me to a matter that has been referred to me by another source. Companies such as Cleanaway Ltd., which is involved in waste disposal, have pointed out their concerns. Such companies are directly in conflict commercially with the cement industry and complain of unfair contrasts in the regulations because waste is treated differently from fuel. They also say that there is not a level playing field.
Rugby Cement says that Her Majesty's inspectorate applies the same stringent emission limits to cement works, regardless of the classification. Who is right? There is nothing wrong with commercial competition—I am entirely in favour of it—but human health and safety must come first, as I am sure the Minister will agree.
To sum up, one of my constituents, who is a science graduate, wrote to me saying that he had no objection to the activity, provided that there was stringent and exact testing, and long-term monitoring. It is important not to have just one test, and then go away and not monitor the problem. Will my hon. Friend the Minister give assurances on that? I have raised many technical questions, so I will understand if he says that he will have to write to me. But this is a continuing concern, and if he can set the anxieties of my constituents at rest, I shall be very grateful.
I am happy for my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton to make his point if he wishes.

Mr. Alan Duncan: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant) for allowing me to be tail-end Charlie in a debate that he has initiated, and I congratulate him on the manner in which he has done it.
I wish to raise a simple point of principle. If our constituents have fears, they must be addressed. What my hon. Friend is seeing in his constituency at Barrington is what my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) and I both saw at Castle Cement in our constituencies about six months ago. If the burning of liquid fuels is safer for our constituents, it would be an act of ultimate political irresponsibility to join a bandwagon of demonstration that denied them that benefit. If, however, it is more harmful, it is absolutely right that our constituents' concerns be properly addressed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley and I persuaded HMIP to apply more stringent rules to how it permanently monitors the problem. I simply implore my hon. Friend the Minister to reconfirm that there will be continuous monitoring; that the information will be made public; that the information is scientifically valid; that the fears of our constituents can be allayed; and that our thanks can be passed to the Minister for the Environment and Countryside for the way in which so far he has handled that topic.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Sir Paul Beresford): I congratulate all those who have participated in this debate. They have taken a sensible, careful and considered attitude towards the problem, rather than allowing themselves to succumb to alarmist points. I hope that I can provide some reassurance.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West (Sir A. Grant) has provided me with an opportunity to underline that we have a continuing determination to protect the environment in this country and to explain how we are dealing with the issues that he and others have raised.
My hon. Friend will recall that the Environmental Protection Act 1990 singles out complex industrial processes with significant pollution potential by placing them under a particularly rigorous regime known as integrated pollution control. Part I of the Act requires that such processes, which include cement works, are regulated by Her Majesty's inspectorate of pollution.
When regulating these industries, HMIP's priorities are first to prevent and then to minimise and render harmless any releases from the process. The operator must use the best available techniques that do not entail excessive cost. The Act also requires that the inspectorate considers harm to the environment as a whole and has regard to the best practical environmental option when judging the techniques to be used.
The whole regulatory process is open to public scrutiny. Copies of the application, any authorisation or returns required by the authorisation and, where appropriate, notice of any formal enforcement action taken by HMIP are placed on public registers.
It is important to recognise where the responsibilities lie in delivering environmental protection. The onus is on the operator. It is up to the operator to conceive, design, build, and operate his cement plant in such a way as to meet the requirements of the law.
As my hon. Friend is probably aware, cement manufacture is an energy-intensive process in which energy costs represent approximately 65 to 75 per cent. of variable costs. The process uses a kiln heated to temperatures of over 1,400 deg C by burning a fuel, which, as he mentioned, is normally coal or petroleum coke.
The cement-making process incorporates several features that may make it suitable for burning substitute fuels. For example, it is a continuous process, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and has high thermal stability for destroying organic materials; it provides a high-temperature environment in which the materials are heated for a long time in the burning zone; and raw materials used for the process are alkaline, and therefore tend to react with any acid gases emitted.
Secondary liquid fuels are residues and various side streams from the recycling of industrial solvents. They are flammable, and, while containing some pollutants that require control, make excellent fuels.
Large companies commonly use the solvent residues as fuels in their own boilers and furnaces. Smaller companies sell their used solvents to companies that specialise in solvent recovery. The specialist companies separate out the various components of waste solvents for recycling and then dispose of the residues to landfill or to high-temperature incineration. There are disadvantages to the disposal of those residues in landfill, while high-temperature incineration of the residues, on the other hand, effectively destroys the solvent residues.
As was mentioned, companies in other European countries and the United States that distil solvents have been converting the residues into fuel for other processes—predominantly cement kilns. Recently, that practice has been adopted in this country. Companies now specialise in purchasing solvent residues and blending them into tightly specified fuels required by the cement industry. There are several substitute fuels on the market with different trade names. Although the actual composition may vary to some extent, the generic nature of the material remains the same.
Because of the need to be sure about the possible consequences of burning solvent residues in cement kilns—which is the main issue in the debate—HMIP has decided that it will not authorise the use of those fuels, except for the purpose of carrying out trials. The trials are to be for a limited period, the fuels used are to be tightly specified and emissions from the plant are to be monitored during the period of the trials. Once the trials have ended, the cement company may no longer use the fuel until the results of the trials have been evaluated.
Government policy on the burning of substitute fuels in cement and lime kilns was detailed in the statement by my hon. Friend the Minister for the Environment and Countryside on 23 June 1994. He made the following things clear. There will be no more such trials than are necessary to allow HMIP to determine best available techniques not entailing excessive costs. The operator must provide satisfactory data on baseline operations before trials commence, which must include emission data and kiln operating data. All trials must be to an agreed schedule. If any trial is adversely affecting the environment, it must stop. HMIP must agree the specification for substitute fuel in advance. The operator must provide continuous monitors for particulates, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and oxygen.
I can assure the House that that is still the case, and HMIP will not authorise the permanent use of substitute fuels until it has considered, and is satisfied by, the outcome of trials.

Mrs. Anne Campbell: Does the Minister agree, and will he tell the House, that the standard set for cement kilns is considerably less stringent than that for hazardous waste incinerators?

Sir Paul Beresford: I was coming to that, but the hon. Lady should recognise that the fuel that we are discussing, which is used as a fuel in cement kilns, is also used as a fuel in the incinerated waste incinerators. What is put into the waste incinerators is different from that which is put into the kilns. HMIP is anxious to ensure, and is ensuring, that what comes out as fumes is safe.

Mrs. Campbell: Surely, if a certain level of particulates, nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide is considered to be safe for the hazardous waste incinerators, we should be applying the same stringent levels to the cement kilns.

Sir Paul Beresford: They are in effect, as I understand it, applied. The hon. Lady appears to be missing the point: that a different exhaust results from what one puts in in the first place.
HMIP has imposed strict requirements on operators undertaking trials with substitute fuels. Apart from complying with those policy objectives, the operator must provide a wide range of information, including results of monitoring for dioxins and heavy metals and on-going progress reports, and install control systems to specified standards.
I understand that there is no sign of any additional harm to the environment from the burning of secondary fuels at Barrington or anywhere else where those trials have been taking place. For example, the Ministry of Agriculture,

Fisheries and Food recently undertook the monitoring of milk in the area around the cement works at Clitheroe, which has the longest history of burning substitute fuels, and found no sign of any increase in dioxins or heavy metals.
The other interesting fact of which I was informed is that more than 90 per cent. of the dioxins to which we are exposed come from food, and that living near a cement kiln, regardless of the fuel, will not alter that picture.
Of course, there are commercial, as well as environmental issues which might explain some of views that we have heard tonight. The UK has a significant specialised incineration industry, which historically has used rather similar materials as fuel. It has been argued that permanent burning of substitute fuels will commercially damage the United Kingdom's specialised incineration capacity.
On balance, it is thought that the short-term impact would be to impose higher costs on the merchant hazardous waste disposal industry. It is likely that the industry would have to purchase some additional support fuel rather than receive it as waste. That may raise prices for the disposal of the other wastes treated by that route, and it would affect the competitiveness of the disposal method. In the longer term, impacts may be less significant.
I now return to the burning of secondary liquid fuel at Rugby Cement, Barrington. The first phase of trials at Barrington took place from 1 September 1994 to 16 December 1994, when the works reverted to burning 100 per cent. conventional fuels. Rugby Cement submitted a request for a further phase of trials to HMIP on 21 December 1994. The request accompanied monitoring data on the trials to that date and a comparison of the environmental impact of emissions when burning 100 per cent. coal and petroleum coke and 25 per cent. secondary liquid fuel.
HMIP asked the operator to supply further information to justify the proposal for a further phase which related in particular to raw material and fuel analyses and to dioxin releases and the use of test data in the company's evaluation of the effects on the environment, as shown by the first phase of the trials. HMIP received that additional information on 18 January 1995 and evaluated it in conjunction with the initial submission.
HMIP noted that the results submitted indicated that, compared with conventional fuel burning, the use of secondary liquid fuel resulted in a decrease in the releases of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter and hydrogen chloride. There was no significant difference between stack releases of dioxins and heavy metals, which were well within the limits set for incineration plants.
Based on that, the first phase of the trial has shown that there are no adverse environmental effects associated with the use of secondary liquid fuel and, as mentioned by the tail-end Charlie—as my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr. Duncan) called himself—there may even he the potential for environmental gains.
HMIP gave permission on 20 January 1995 for a further phase of trials to take place in four stages. Further conditions have been imposed—that the specification of secondary liquid fuel may be to even tighter limits than previously, that the full results of monitoring the first stage will be available and evaluated prior to progressing


to the second stage, and that the trials will be limited to four months, excluding evaluation time. The second phase of the trials commenced on 23 January 1995.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire, South-West referred to resources, and I raised that matter specifically with the head of HMIP, indicating the source of the concerns. To put it bluntly, he was astonished, and said that there were no resource difficulties.
Rugby Cement has now applied to HMIP for a variation to its cement process authorisation to allow the permanent use of secondary liquid fuels at up to 25 per cent. substitution. The application and the supporting documents have been placed on the public registers, and the operator is required to advertise in the local press within 42 days of the application being lodged. Following that advertisement, HMIP will allow 42 days for public and statutory consultation.
The overall period available for the determination of the application is four months. In determining the application, HMIP will consider whether the financial

benefits to Rugby from the use of secondary liquid fuel justify further expenditure by the works to abate emissions from the process.
In all this, HMIP will ensure that the secondary liquid fuel will be used only in a way which does not jeopardise human health or the environment. In theory, a cement kiln offers ideal conditions for the destruction of these materials: temperatures are higher and residence times longer than in high-temperature incinerators—which may also answer the point about plume grounding. The presence of the clinker within the kiln also adds to its potential to destroy wastes. In any event, HMIP will not allow the process to continue if the results are not as good as those produced by incinerators.
In conclusion, HMIP has placed strict conditions on the trial use of substitute fuels in cement kilns and is monitoring developments closely. I can assure hon. Members that HMIP will not allow the permanent use of the fuels in cement kilns unless it is totally convinced that the environment, and therefore people's health, is fully protected.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Ten o'clock.